


Zax's Psychtober Celebration!

by Zaxal



Category: Psych
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gems, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angels, Banshees, Clones, Curses, Demonic Possession, Drugs, Empath, Fluff, Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Multi, Necromancy, One Shot Collection, Post-Apocalypse, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Requited Unrequited Love, Stranger Sex, Torture, Vampires, Whump, unreality, year walk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-04-25 16:21:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 27,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4967860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaxal/pseuds/Zaxal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>31 Responses to Muiromem's Scary Psychtober Prompt List</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Body Stealer

They’re in the middle of their fourth date when there’s a _twitch_ in his brain. The world slides sideways, his body teetering uncertainly on the stool, and Lassiter’s hand lashes out in an instant, grabbing his elbow, pulling him up. And, really, this is the point where he’d be worried about being roofied, but this is _Lassie_ , and they’ve been dancing around this thing between them _forever_ , and even if they hadn’t, Lassie’s not the kind of person to drug his dates, so what the hell. He hasn’t even had anything to drink yet.

“Spencer? Are you-?”

He intends to say ‘yeah’.

What comes out is, “Seven years, Carlton.”

In an instant, his entire demeanor changes, a scowl twisting on his lips, eyes narrowed. “Stop.”

“Seven years,” Shawn’s voice whines, “and you _left_ me.”

“I can’t do this with you right now,” he says. “Get out.”

“Oh, when would be a more convenient time? In another seven years?”

“How about ‘never’?”

Shawn feels hazy, out of control, drugged or drunk and he doesn’t like it, but the thing that’s settled into his bones doesn’t seem to care at all. “Then maybe ‘never’ is when this one gets his body back.”

Lassiter’s eyes are fiery with rage. His hand on Shawn’s elbow firms, and he leads him sternly to the empty men’s restroom, closing the door and locking it behind him. “You’ll let him go, or I’ll get him exorcised.”

“Do you really want to take that chance?” The thing asks, laughs, smiling Shawn’s wide grin. “Bet I can hurt him before you get a priest here.”

Lassie looks uncertain, and he slowly lets go, crossing his arms. Mutters, “I’m sorry, Spencer.”

“You’re apologizing to _him_? I’m the one who deserves an apology!”

“I’m not in the business of appeasing psycho stalkers.”

“Is that what you think I am? I _love_ -”

“Don’t,” Lassiter snarls. “You don’t.”

“You loved me,” it whines petulantly.

“I was 16. I don’t know if you noticed, but a lot’s changed.”

“You’re not married anymore. So I-”

“So nothing.”

Shawn’s hands are moving of their own accord, nails biting into the flesh of his arm, scratching deep without so much as flinching from the pain. It takes Lassiter only a second to notice, and he storms up, grabs the arm, and slams it against the door. This close, and Shawn can feel the breath ghosting over his lips, can feel the mutual urge to kiss him and then revulsion that the other person was thinking the same thing.

“Why,” Lassiter ventures, eyes narrowed, “aren’t you with your last host? I thought you two liked each other.”

“We did. Until she fell in love with someone else.”

“Christ,” he swears, still controlling one of Shawn’s arms to minimize the harm the thing beneath his skin can do.

“She wasn’t allowed to, and she did it anyway. She wanted to forget you.”

“I wanted to forget both of you, so we were even in that regard.”

“Carlton,” it whines piteously. “I love-”

“You love fucking with me and with the people I care about. Not this time. Leave him out of this.”

“Does that low gravely voice usually work?” It asks, the words slipping off Shawn’s tongue, a seductive lull. “Does it get you what you want, Carlton? Does it make him go all weak in the knees, and get you all those confessions you work so hard for?” Arches Shawn’s body against him with a wicked smirk, a falsetto moan escaping through his lips.

Lassiter’s other hand comes up, presses against Shawn’s chest, pushing them back down. “I will get you out of there one way or another. It’s been 30 years since I felt anything more than disdain for you. So, I’m going to tell you the exact same thing I’ve told you every time since then: _move on_.”

“Do you think he’ll feel anything for you once this is over? Do you really want to be alone again?” Continued to strain against Lassiter’s hands, trying to get closer to him.

“I would rather be alone than know that you’ve done this to someone else. So leave, before I make you. And before you ask, yes, I am willing to tie you both up until Father Littleton gets here.”

Shawn’s eyes flash lightning quick over his face, looking for deceit or weakness, but could find only an unyielding wall. “I’ll come back,” it purrs finally. “At a more convenient time.”

The presence is gone as suddenly as it came, his legs giving out beneath him. Lassiter grabs him and hauls him close as the stall doors swing wildly, all of the faucets turn on, and the lights flicker madly. Then, in a blink, it’s all gone. “Spencer?”

“What the _hell was that_?” Shawn gasps, pushing him away once he was certain he could stand on his own.

“My, um. My ex.” Sheepish can barely fully cover the look on his face, the deep embarrassment that Shawn had never seen him have for anything else in his life. “My first girlfriend was possessed. The… demon. Decided it loved me. It’s been stalking me ever since.”

“But not the last seven years?”

“No.” Crosses his arms and admits quietly, “It and Lucinda were practically best friends. It possessed her when she became my junior partner, and usually let Lucinda have control of her body and mind.”

Shawn tilts his head and ponders. “So it doesn’t explain all of your other bad first dates.”

“No,” Lassiter says miserably. “It doesn’t.”

“Soooo,” Shawn looks away. “Good thing this is our fourth date, huh?” Peeks up at him cautiously, surprised to see him staring. “I’m not gonna lie, that freaked me out, but you’ve been dealing with it for a long time, right, so you have to know… something about it.”

“I do, but… No one’s ever stuck around for the ‘prevention’ phase, so I don’t really know how well any of it works.” Casts his eyes to the ground, like he expects Shawn to take off running now, just like everyone else.

It’s tempting, honestly. But at the same time… “We’ll find out then, won’t we? Just promise me one thing.”

Lassie looks at him with those big blue eyes, and Shawn solemnly takes his hands.

“If I get possessed again, you have to take me so I can scare Gus.”

Lassiter groans. “Absolutely not.”

“Lassie!”

“This is serious!”

“I’m being serious! You better record it on your phone or something, too, man; we’re gonna be YouTube stars.”

Another long-suffering groan follows, but he doesn’t argue further. Shawn grins. “So, this date was awful, all things considered, so I vote we get a do-over. Free tomorrow?”

“You’re sure,” he asks, still sounding so uncertain himself, like he can’t believe Shawn’s taking this in stride.

“Hell yeah. Dude, this doesn’t even break my top five worst dates of all time.”

There’s a pause. “How?”

“Let me get two or three shots in, then ask me again. They’re a lot of really long, horrible stories.” Reaches down to grab his hand while also reaching for the lock. “Since we encountered your terrible ex — this time — you’re buying the first round.”

Feels him pulls back, reluctant and unsure, but after a moment he squeezes Shawn’s hand, and he follows him out of the bathroom. “That’s fair.”


	2. Jekyll and Hyde

The drugs hit his system in a matter of seconds. By the time the needle slid out of his arm and ended up in the trash, his pupils were already widening, a smirk twitching on his lips. He shouldn’t, but he _liked_ this; he knew that immediately. Everything felt loose, easy, all of his usual anxieties and paranoia pushed so far to the background that they barely registered.

“Um,” the gang’s resident nerd pushed his glasses up his nose, staring at him, owlike and hunched over a clipboard and a calculator. “It should be affecting him.”

“It is affecting me,” he offered up helpfully, smiling wider when they turned to look at him. There were five others. Test driving some experimental drug on unsuspecting victims. He was supposed to be leading a bust tomorrow. They knew that, somehow; he can’t wait to find out who leaked.

“W-would you m-mind telling me how you feel?”

“I don’t talk about feelings,” he said easily, earning him a laugh from one of the two meatheads before everyone else glared at him.

This wasn’t him, all easy talk, comfortably joking, confident. It never had been, even at his cockiest, most arrogant.

“Um,” the nerd piped up again. “Would you answer some questions for me, then?”

Carlton turned his eyes slowly to him again, and he gave a tiny nod.

“Name and age?”

“Booker, 37.”

“Surname?”

“Law.”

“Are you lying?”

They had his wallet. His driver’s license, proof that he was, but something made him certain that he wasn’t the person they’d picked up off the street. “Maybe your test drive changed some things.”

“That’s what we’re trying to ascertain.”

Blinked. “Then, no. I’m not ‘lying’.”

“So you believe you’re a 37 year-old man named Booker Law.” Booker tilted his head, conceding, agreeing.

“Do you know what your ID says?”

“Carlton Lassiter, 44.”

“Come on, dude, he’s just fucking with us.” One of the men in charge said. Not a meathead, not a nerd, in command, in control. Booker stretched in his restraints, relieving some of the tension on his spine as well as testing how loose the bonds were. Idiots expected him to be high as a kite or at least out of his mind. “He’s resistant, or something.”

The nerd got up and shuffled over, shone a light in his eyes to show his dilated pupils. “It’s affecting him. This is a new reaction, and we shouldn’t discount it-”

“Just OD him. That should buy us some time.”

“But we need to know-!”

“99% of people get high, 1% have this weird reaction.”

There was a pause. “Well, given our sample size, it’s more like 3.7037% might have this ‘weird’ reaction.”

“It’ll sell.”

The nerd shuffled back to his spot, and, for a moment, everyone watched him go. Or looked at one another. Crucially, no one watched their prisoner, and Booker used the slack in the restraints to free himself, lunging for the nearest meathead and his gun.

His body knew the heft of his service weapon like it was a body part. No rounds missing from the magazine, safety off. _Idiots_.

The moments passed in a blur of noise and movement, each feeling fluid and natural until there were a pile of bodies and the bloodied gun kissing the jaw of the nerd, his fingers curled brutally tight in his hair to yank his head back. “You want to live?”

“Yes,” he whimpered.

Ruffled his hair with an affectionate smile, murmured, “Then you really shouldn’t have looked at my ID.”

Left moments later, bloodied and with the rest of their ‘samples’. He didn’t intend for this to be over anytime soon.


	3. Candle to Light the Way

There was a light flickering in the woods, behind the first rows of trees. It twisted, rose, dove, like it knew it was being watched. It wasn’t fire, nothing was catching even when it touched leaves or branches or the forest floor. “What are you staring at?” Gus plopped down next to him, smoothing out his Scouts uniform until it was pristine, unruffled. Picked meticulously at a piece of dirt like they weren’t out camping, like they wouldn’t be asleep on the ground, like the whole point wasn’t getting dirty and not getting into trouble for it.

His dad had dropped them off at the campsite and told them to stay out of trouble. His campsite would be close enough in case of an emergency, but far enough to discourage anything other than absolute independence from the 8 year olds unless said emergency occurred.

This wasn’t an emergency. “You see that?”

Gus’s eyes turned reluctantly to the woods, half-expecting Shawn to surprise him, but he, too, saw the light.

“Maybe it’s your dad with a flashlight.”

Shawn muttered, “Maybe it’s your dad with a flashlight.”

“Shawn!”

“I mean, we won’t know unless we look, right?”

Gus hesitated. “We’re not supposed to leave camp.”

“We won’t,” Shawn assured him quickly. “We’re barely even gonna go into the woods. I just wanna see what it is.” He stood up, practically bouncing in his hiking boots. Gus hesitated, and Shawn sighed. “What?”

“Maybe it’s like an angler fish. It lures you in with the light and eats you.”

“Are there any angler fish on land?”

Another pause, then a hesitant, “N-”

“That’s what I thought.” Started walking before Gus could come up with any other imaginary monsters that it _might be_ instead of finding out what it _was_. “Come on, unless you’re a chicken.”

Heard Gus scrambled indignantly to his feet and laughed. Took off running to get a closer look, but the light bobbed deeper into the forest. Shawn, without hesitation, followed it deeper. “Shawn! You said we weren’t gonna leave camp!”

“I wanna find out what it is!”

“Then we’ll go to the library in school on Monday and-” Shawn made a disgusted noise. “Librarians are very knowledgeable!”

Shawn knew two things: Libraries were totally boring, and that seeing the source of the light would answer all of his questions. He could analyze the data himself and not have to listen to some fussy old lady go through all the boring stuff before getting to the good part. “We won’t get lost. I have the ET thing, right?”

“ _Eidetic memory_ , Shawn.”

“Same difference.”

“ET is a lovable alien from another planet. You’re just a jerk who never listens to his best friend. Also, ‘same difference’ makes absolutely no sense.”

“Look,” Shawn said, tearing his eyes away from the light although he was afraid it would disappear. “Do you wanna be here if Dad comes looking for us, and I’m not here?”

Gus shook his head meekly. Shawn almost felt bad. But this, this was adventure. They’d always dreamed of adventure, like Uncle Jack. It was in his blood.

“Okay. So we’re gonna follow the light.”

“Okay,” Gus agreed, and they set out into the forest.

The light, at first, remained only a few steps ahead of them, illuminating nothing despite the fact that it should. Then, it started getting farther away, going faster. Shawn sped up until he was running full-tilt, weaving through the trees, Gus yelling behind him (though not very far; for all of Gus’s complaining when it came to PE, he could easily keep up with Shawn). It seemed close, and he reached out to grab it only to have it dart out of the way again, and Shawn laughed.

He reached out again, and a cold hand closed around his wrist, yanking him back. “Stop!”

The light danced ahead, taunting. Shawn tried to wrench himself free.

“You have to stop!”

Gus caught up, panting hard, before looking over at Shawn and asking, quite fearfully, “Who’re you?”

Realization slammed into him, and Shawn turned to look at the person who’d grabbed him. Teenager, gangly-limbed, significantly taller than both he and Gus and still growing. A few spots of acne, short, black hair, and bright blue eyes that seemed to cut through him. “That’s a _wisp_ , you- you-”

“Shawn,” he said helpfully. “I’m Shawn.”

“You’re an idiot!”

“He really is,” Gus said, sliding close to grab Shawn’s other hand. “C’mon, Shawn, let’s go back to camp.”

“What’s a wisp?” Shawn asked, eyes slowly sliding back to the light that seemed content to dance around behind their new friend’s head.

“Wisps are evil spirits.”

Shawn gave something between a scoff and a laugh.

“They live in forests and swamps; they lead you away from the path to your death.”

“I appreciate the Halloween story, but unless you have candy, I’m not all that interested-”

“Fine,” the stranger said, crossing his arms with a glare. “Go back to camp. Go on. Find your way back.”

Shawn rolled his eyes — who was this kid, his dad? — but when he took a look around at the forest, he realized that he had no idea where they were. But admitting that was admitting defeat, and that wouldn’t do. He took several decisive steps away from the wisp and the teenager, certain that he was going the right way. “Maybe it would’ve led us to buried treasure,” he grumbled. “Bet that other kid wants it all for himself.”

Took another look around the woods and realized with a sickening twist that he still had no clue where they were. Every group of trees looked the same with very little discernible features. After long minutes of aimless wandering, Gus asked quietly, “Are we lost?”

“No,” Shawn said, pulling his hand free from Gus’s. “I know exactly where we are. We just… we ran in this far, right? So of course it’s gonna take us longer to get back if we’re walking. We turned here, see?”

“Not that way!” The stranger’s voice echoed as Shawn took a step to the left, and his boot slipped on the precipice, the rest of his body following gravity down, and he had barely enough time to scream. That cold hand caught him, both closing around his wrist. “Hey, kid. Up here, look at me, don’t look down.”

Too late. Shawn looked down at what seemed like an abyss, fog collecting at the bottom, making it hard to see just how far down it went. He felt dizzy or like he was going to throw up or something.

“Up here, Shawn!”

He slowly looked up, reaching up with his other hand to grab onto him. “Don’t let go!”

“I won’t! We’re gonna get you out. I promise.”

Slowly, he began to lean up, pulling Shawn’s weight up and over the lip of the ravine. Shawn scrambled away, breathing heavily. Gus sat next to him, put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. Shawn turned wild eyes to the other kid who seemed… calm. And Shawn hated him for that, for being okay when he could have died! “Why didn’t you tell me there was a cliff there?”

“Ravine,” the boy corrected. “You said you could find your way out…”

“I was lying!”

“I didn’t want you to be.”

“What does that even-?”

“I can’t find my way out either. I’ve tried. Following the wisps, going the opposite way, but I always come back here. I always step,” he pointed to a shoe print not far from Shawn’s own, and Shawn was wondering what kind of shoes this kid was wearing when he realized that he was barefoot. That his clothes were torn. “Right here. But I only fell once. Kicked my boots off, but I still couldn’t pull myself up.”

Shawn was silent and still. Gus was trembling enough for both of them.”This isn’t funny,” he said finally, his voice wavering.

“No, it isn’t.”

“Teenagers,” Gus muttered. “Right, Shawn? They think they know everything, like how to scare us just because we’re smaller.”

The teen unfolded himself and stood, walking to the very edge. Closed his eyes and held out his arms, swan diving into oblivion. Then, with a flash, he was sitting on the ground, in the exact same position, as if he’d never gotten up.

“You think we’re gonna die out here,” Shawn said finally, meeting his eyes without flinching.

“I think we’re all lost causes.” Looked out across the ravine. “For all I know, you’re already… like me.”

“No,” Shawn said. “No, we’re not. We’re gonna get out of here.”

“Do you think I don’t want you to?” He leveled a look at Shawn. “I’m not like the wisps. I- I don’t want there to be others. I did save you,” he pointed out weakly.

“But if you’re a ghost, how did you even touch me?”

“I’m strongest here. This is as close to m- my body as I can get. The farther we get, the weaker and less influential I’ll be.”

“Then…” Shawn considered. “Then aren’t you, like, a compass?”

“Shawn,” Gus hissed, tugging at his friend’s arm. “That’s not how compasses work, or-”

“But if he knows he’s getting weaker, then he can lead us away from the ravine! As long as we’re walking away from here, we’re bound to get out of the woods! Then we can find my dad, and he can… he can…”

“It’s worth a shot, I guess.” Stood slowly, again. Held out his hands. “This way no one gets lost. We’ll stick together, and we’ll try, and if we loop back here, somehow, I’ll keep you from falling.”

Shawn took his hand without pause. Gus took a moment longer but finally accepted the offering.

“If- Or, when you get out, if- if you do… Can you tell them what happened to me? My mom, my sister — they deserve to know.”

“Yeah,” Shawn agreed. “Yeah, of course. My dad’s a cop, the greatest cop; if you give me your name, I’m sure he’d be willing to tell them.”

“Carlton Lassiter,” he said. And took a step forward. “Let’s get the two of you out of here.”

Behind them, a wisp bobbed over the ravine before vanishing with a small flare of smoke.


	4. Necromancy

He wants to cry. He wants to tear at the seams and break apart and never, ever be put back together. Instead, he forces a smile for Woody. “You can let me in, right, buddy? No big deal. I just want to see him.”

Woody looks over him, with the satchel around his shoulder, the tension shaking in his shoulders, and he looks reluctant. “Come on, Woods. Favor for a friend.”

The word ‘friend’ always gets him, and Shawn would feel worse about using that weakness to wheedle under the mortician’s skin, but he’s running out of time. The book, the ingredients; all of it needed to come together, and it needed to be here, at the station, where the link to his soul would be strongest. Their apartment would’ve also worked, but somehow, he has a feeling he’s not going to get his boyfriend’s remains that far.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he says, trying to laugh it off, to tease, and Shawn gives him a grin that feels feral.

The body’s covered with a sheet, feet poking out the end, a toe tag tied around it, and this, this is so hard. Because he wants to look — he needs to look even though he knows it’ll be ingrained in his memory forever. He’s dying every second, has been ever since he got the call from Jules where she couldn’t stop crying long enough to tell him what’d happened.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, setting the satchel on a sterile table. “It’ll be okay, Lassie, I promise.”

How is he going to explain that his boyfriend came back from the dead? He hasn’t gotten that far. Maybe he won’t explain it at all. Maybe he’ll just take Lassie and get the hell out of here, get far away from Santa Barbara and responsibility and the knowledge that it could happen again, and that Shawn would end up here, again, willing to tatter both of their souls more to keep them together.

Shawn has the setup memorized, but he opens the book anyway. He’ll run through everything, one last time, just to be sure, because there can be no mistakes. The lights are turned off as candles flicker. Shawn draws on the tiles, a perfect circle, perfect symbols, to make sure that the only vessel the soul can find is the one it left.

He looks at the clock; he has hours, but it feels like seconds. But all the time he takes in preparation, all the things he’s done — it will mean nothing if it doesn’t work, and then he’ll have to try again or- or something. Because accepting the finality of that table and that sheet and that toe tag is something he cannot do.

Now this, this he needs the book for, hauls it up into his arms, all the heavy weight both physical and emotional. By candlelight, it’s hard to make out the words, but Shawn has these memorized, too. He begins speaking, an ancient tongue flowing from his lips, and he can feel something tingling, first in his fingers and toes, then up farther, slowly drawing more of him in as it crawls closer to the center of him.

They’d warned him, and he hadn’t listened. Not because of doubt, but because he didn’t care.

To bring something back, something else has to go into the void in its place. To cheat death, part of him would have to die.

The strange energy is balling up in the center of him, pulling, and he knows the path this goes down, but he can’t stop, can’t keep the breathiness out of his voice or help the way his hands tremble from excitement and terror. All he can do is keep reading, repeating, until something from him physically tears. It rips him apart from the inside, a pain so intense that it’s the worst thing he’s ever felt. He bites his tongue so hard it bleeds, and then _laughs_ , laughs because it’s working. It has to be working. That’s the only thing it _can_ be.

\-----

_“You’d have to be willing to give up anything.” The owner of the book still has her hand on it, proprietary, possessive. “They’ll rip the most important thing from you.”_

_“They already did,” Shawn said grimly. “I’m willing. I- I have to.”_

_“Be sure,” she murmured, finally lifting her hand to scratch the stump of her right arm, “that you won’t have any regrets.”_

\-----

All at once, the lights go out. Shawn’s breathing is coming hard and fast, and he tosses the book back on the table, waiting, listening. Something stirs, he can hear it. The sound of skin unsticking from the table, the rustle of the sheet. “What the hell?” That voice. That voice, and Shawn’s hands are feeling his way through the dark to the light switch.

When he turns it on, he hears the hum of fluorescent lights, but Shawn remains in darkness.

“Spencer?”

“Lassie,” he breathes like it’s the first time he’s been able to in days. “Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere? They said you wouldn’t, that it won’t- that you won’t- not again, not right now, but someday, right, we all do, someday.”

“Shawn,” Lassiter says as calmly as he can. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?”

“There was a shootout. I was in the crossfire… Where are my cl-” Then he stops himself, putting the pieces together all at once. Their location, the sheet, the haphazard remnants of a successful ritual. Shawn can’t begin to imagine the look on his face. “How?”

“A little necromancy.” Laughs again, a little wildly. “What have I told you? I know how to do everything.”

“Except look at me.” The voice comes from off the table, to the side, and Shawn curses inwardly, cocking his head towards his voice. Hears the footsteps patter on the floor, the feel of a hand as cold as death sliding up his cheek, cupping it and drawing him up where he cannot hide. “Shawn-”

“Don’t. Don’t even. It was worth it. It’ll be worth it the next hundred times I do it, if I have to.”

“Death is a part of life.”

“Not like this. Not you, not now.” Despairing that something might have changed between them, he murmurs, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he says before crushing him in a hug so tight that Shawn can barely breathe. “How the hell are we going to explain this?”

“Well, you see. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

Lassie muffles a laugh into his shoulder, sounding desperate and scared but _alive_ , and Shawn would trade everything he has for that alone.


	5. Ancient Curse

Jack honestly isn’t in the market for adventures. What he wants is money, so much money that he can lend to his brother indefinitely and have him in his debt, to show the world that he’s the best there ever was, to _win_ , and that’s the Spencer trademark, the guarantee that he can’t ever get rid of even if he goes for a time without using his real name. Does he want there to be buried treasure? Of course he does. He wants to be Indiana Jones as much as his nephew wants him to be.

But the sad truth is that most buried treasures have been dug up, and that the real profit lies in the pockets of the unsuspecting sheep around him. The locals in this town don’t speak good English, but Jack does. Jack weaves a tale of mystery and excitement in front of a crowd of tourists, hawking wares that he bought not far from here and claiming that they came from inside the recently-unearthed tomb.

Suckers.

However, after dark, and the natives have gone to bed, and the real archaeologists have retreated to rest up and left only a single solitary guard for him to misdirect and sneak past, Jack can’t help himself. To make his bullshit believable, he needs to see the tomb with his own two eyes, and if there’s something that might be valuable… He’s willing to sit on it and wait. The convenience of the new find, and the sudden appearance of something obviously stolen would draw too much attention. But he had time. The rest of his life.

There’s something barring entrance to the deepest burial chamber. Unreadable glyphs don’t point to the way to enter, so he ignores them and proceeds to try to physically move the carved rock in front of him.

Something speaks in a language he can’t understand, and the light from his flashlight goes abruptly dark.

\-----

His cellphone rings, and it’s a number he doesn’t know. Shawn intends to let it go to voice mail — he’s quite busy trying to throw wadded-up notes from their last case through the basketball hoop over their trash can — but his phone picks it up for him. There’s a deep voice, gravely, practically dragging every word it speaks over a bed of nails. Shawn, though multi-talented and a sort of jack-of-all-trades, doesn’t understand a word it’s saying. He jots down what seems like the correct syllables, does a general Google search, and when that fails, puts it into Google Translate. No dice.

So he holds the phone, which is helpfully repeating the same phrase over and over again, up to the microphone on his laptop and waits for his browser to decide what language this is, and what it means.

Whatever it is in his phone jumps to his computer, and types it out helpfully in size 20, bold font.

**YOU DESECRATE OUR PAST; WE DESTROY YOUR FUTURE.**

“Well,” Shawn says, forcefully turning his phone off since it wants to continue screaming the same message over and over again. “That’s not good.”

Shawn has exactly long enough to wonder what the hell’s going on before and invisible force grabs him and pulls him back out of the chair. His head connects with a dirt floor, and when he looks up, vision swimming, he realizes he’s in some kind of… cave?

Torches flicker on the walls, illuminating vines and moss and doing very little to banish the darkness he’s most worried about.

“Shawn?”

Shawn turns too quickly, his head spinning, but that sure is Uncle Jack plastered to the wall, some kind of vines lashing him there, and Shawn approaches to quickly help, but is stopped by the fact that the vines are covered in tiny, sharp thorns. “Uncle Jack?”

“Hey, kiddo. Uh, how’d you get here?”

“I have no idea. Where’s ‘here’?”

“We’re in Central America. Can’t quite remember where. Had a real nasty hit to my head.”

Shawn laughs, falsely because nothing about this is funny, and if this is Jack’s way of getting back at him for stealing the treasure, then he’s got news for him. Except when Shawn looks around, he realizes he can’t see an exit. “I’m sure you did. Man, seriously, where are we? You know someone with a movie set?”

Jack doesn’t answer, and before Shawn can turn around to look at him again, he feels vines and thorns grabbing at his skin, feels his back slam into the wall, knocking the breath out of him. There’s an unearthly wail that shakes the chamber, the torches dimming, and Shawn’s gasping for air. That language again, saying the same thing, and Shawn realizes too late that this isn’t a joke.

Something big slams through the far wall, a hulking beast that looks at him with red, glowing eyes as bricks and dust scatter around them.

He can still see the eyes even after the torches go out.


	6. Soul Vessel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally couldn't think of anything else for soul vessel, so you're getting a Gem AU. I'm sorry ;w;

In a flash of light, he’s gone.

The panic shouldn’t be there; he’s seen this happen, he knows, by now, what it means, but the fear is reactionary, it is human. After all, he just saw his boyfriend die.

There’s a soft ‘plink’ as the smooth, round piece of sodalite drops to the ground, and Shawn’s on it in an instant, picking it up and crooning cautiously that it’s fine, that everything’s going to be okay. He’s so lost in the deep, rich blue, the clouds of inky darkness within and the marbling of brighter colors that he forgets, for a moment, about the monster they were supposed to be fighting.

“Shawn! Get down!”

The large form hurtles over him, slamming into the many-legged, scary thing that sent Lassie back into his gem. It opens its maw, and the Gules fusion dodges artfully out of the way — two dancers added together make for an extremely agile enemy — and immediately aim for the weak point Gus had identified earlier, helpfully glowing on the monster’s back.

They pull the gem out and bubble it to send to rehab, and then they turn to look at him. Four eyes, one set brown, one blue, look him over, at the gem he’s cradling in his hands. They’re just as panicked as he is, deep down inside, because, even as often as they see it happen — and, to be clear, it is usually Lassie, who gets a little too reckless once he remembers that he’s practically invincible — they’re still not used to it either. Pure gems have had thousands of years to adjust to the sight of someone going back into their gem. Half-breeds like them have had decades at most.

Gules crouches next to Shawn. Out of the four of them, they’re the most stable, seeming to be the most human. Blonde hair curls down one side of their face, undercut on the opposite side. Well-dressed. Two arms, two legs, mottled skin that takes after their combined gem: pietersite. “Worst case scenario, you would’ve just had to carry me back, too.”

“You could have shattered,” they say calmly.

“So could he.”

That earns him a look, and Shawn feels extremely guilty when they break apart, because Jules needs Lassiter to be okay, and Gus needs it to be him. It’s the one thing they can’t agree on, even fused together.

Jules’s moonstone is on the back of her hand, glimmering before she turns it over, beckons for Lassie, and Shawn doesn’t want to let him go. His gem — striped green and gold serpentine — is on his wrist, and he’s practically holding Lassie against it like he can give him some of or any of his power to make his regeneration quicker. “Shawn, I need to make sure he’s not cracked.”

Reluctantly, he passes his — their — boyfriend over. They are a ‘them’, whether that’s what any of them intended or not. Half-breeds needed to stick together, and for people who meshed as well as they did, who could fuse so well together, it was natural that they’d fall into this the way that they had. That’s what he tells his dad, anyway, not that Henry understands. He’s never understood.

“He’s fine,” she announces finally, light glowing from her gem as she searches one last time for even the slightest crack.

“Of course he is,” Gus says like he wasn’t scared, too, when Shawn knows he was. Knows it by the way Gus reaches for his own gem, a square shape of nuummite on the back of his head.

“Think he’ll be out in time for dinner?”

As if on cue, the sodalite lifts off the ground, glows, and the form of Carlton Lassiter takes shape, his gem replacing what would’ve been a human’s left eye. “Where’d it go?” He demands instantly, looking around for the dispatched enemy.

“Relax, Lassie. Gules took care of it.”

He avoids their eyes like it will make them not see his embarrassment, his shame at being weak enough to be beaten by the monster of the week, like they won’t know he’ll keep himself awake and training for hours instead of sleeping, like that’ll make a difference when he needs to learn that they’re a team.

But, well. He’ll learn. Or he’ll make Shawn’s heart stop one of these times with worry. Either way, hopefully the agony won’t take too long.

“We need to go before the cops get here,” he says, brushing himself off as if he didn’t just emerge perfectly clean. “Vick’s never happy to see us when it’s gem stuff.”

“I don’t think Vick’s happy to see us ever,” Gus points out. Lassie reaches down and takes his hand, pulling him to his feet. Jules gets the same treatment. Then, he turns to look at Shawn. Holds out his hand.

When he pulls Shawn up, he tugs him close, fingers hovering over his wrist and his gem, tracing lightly, stealing intimacy before they get the hell out at the first sound of sirens.


	7. Walk in the Woods

The trees rise high, the canopy almost blocking out the sun though a stray ray here and there manages to escape to the forest floor. He doesn’t look behind him, for he knows well enough that every step forward makes the path behind disappear. Once one sets out, they are not meant to be found, nor are they supposed to escape. And yet here he is, walking farther away from safety, into his inevitable doom. The wind rushes around him, pulling closer and pushing away in equal measure, as if the forest itself cannot decide if he belongs here, if he is welcome.

Luckily for Carlton, he doesn’t much care either way.

So he soldiers on, until the forest gives up on pushing him away, until the faint whisper of wind through the leaves sounds like a familiar laugh.

“I hear you,” he grumbles, somehow restraining himself from going for his gun. Shouldn’t have even brought it with him, for all the good it will do, but he had. More as a comfort than anything. Knowing he could swallow the barrel and pull the trigger if he absolutely had to.

But the truth is that even knowing that, he wouldn’t. So long as there’s a slight chance-

Something flickers through the forest, behind the trees, a shadow that vanishes the moment he gets a good look at it.

Goddamnit.

He keeps walking, deeper and deeper down the road to madness, to that… thing’s territory, its kingdom, the place where it holds all the power and he has none.

There’s that laugh again, tickling his ear, a finger brushing behind it, and he can’t help himself, turns and glares at nothing, at the empty woods. His heart squeezes in his chest, and he growls, pushing the feeling down, focusing on the here and now and what he has to do.

The path before him opens up into a clearing, still cast in shadows though Carlton’s eyes can make out a distinct shape in the dark.

“Lassie,” it murmurs, grin wide as it steps into the light. Fangs sharpen his canines, and his eyes — they’re not Shawn’s. They’re a deep emerald green, the color of the trees after a long rain, the traces of brown and gold completely eradicated by the spirit that’s taken him over. “We weren’t sure if you’d ever come.”

“He knew I would,” Carlton corrects gruffly.

The thing cocks its head, tilts its eyes up, as if listening. There’s a rush of wind around him, and Carlton ducks just as a tree branch swings over his head. The branch thunks onto the floor, and he stands up slowly. “You’re going to let him go.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll put him down.”

“Will you,” it says, not sounding at all like it’s a question. He slides closer, quick as a gust, pressing close to him, familiar and he hates the part that responds, that wants to sweep him up in his arms even if Shawn’s been gone for months and the Wild Thing’s been in his place. “I need a host. Kill him, and you'll only be killing him.”

“Then take me.”

“Forever?” It asks, eyes gleaming, grin so wide.

“And let him go.”

“If he can find his way out.”

“You’ll make a way out, or eternity’s going to feel like a long time,” he growls in response.

The thing clasps its hands behind Carlton’s head, lips coming up to kiss him, and then there’s a panicked gasp, Shawn saying, “Lassie, you can’t-!”

“I love you,” he murmurs, with one last searing kiss. “Get out of here before it changes its mind.”

Overgrowth clouds his mind, pushing him almost out of his head as the Wild Thing takes over. A laugh tears out of his throat like a roar.

Shawn is already running down the path, almost clear of the forest, before Wild Thing decides to give chase.


	8. Graveyard

“It’s Halloween.”

“It’s a few days until Halloween,” Gus corrected.

“It’s practically Halloween,” Shawn said carelessly. “You know what that means.”

“Kids,” Lassie grouses, sitting atop his tombstone and glaring at the gates where someone is scaling the wall.

“Exactly! The best time of year! Usually we just have us and the neighbors and the visitors, and we’re-”

“Not allowed to mess with grieving families,” Juliet and Gus snapped in unison.

“But these kids aren’t grieving.” Shawn floats over to Lassie, perching just over his shoulder. “They’re practically desecrating.”

Lassiter’s eyes tracked where they walked, how they carefully skirted around the raised earth. “Not quite.”

“Come on!” Shawn dramatically flung himself higher in the air. “This is the only time we get to have any fun, and all three of you are going to rain on our parade?”

“Shawn,” Gus sighed.

“It’s not as fun without you.” Shawn pouted, floating over to his best friend. Held out his hands, tugging Gus towards corporeality. “All of you. Come on, let’s scare the Jesus into some teenagers.”

Slowly, Juliet smiled, and slowly, the others followed suit. All four of them merged into the fog, rushing towards the intruders. After all, it was a holiday. Even the dead could celebrate.


	9. Summoning Demons

“What is your desire?”

“I want it all. Youth, beauty, power. I want to be everything-”

“-That _he_ thinks you can’t be.”

He smiles grimly, tilts his head to get the bangs out of his eyes. “You got it.”

“And in return?”

“Anything,” he promises easily. “It’s all yours.”

His companion grins sharply, and for the first time in his life, Shawn forgets what happens next.

\-----

It’s all so easy. The con, the show, the sliding under other peoples’ radar — it’s like it’s second nature to him. Maybe it is. He grins broadly at the head detective — Lassiter’s seething every moment he’s in Shawn’s presence, but there’s nothing he can do about it. While he may be immune, none of the others are. Not even Gus, who agrees so easily to broken limitations, to Shawn stepping over his personal boundaries. Plays along without once thinking that something is awry.

But that detective’s going to get himself into some serious trouble if he can’t let go.

The first time he grabs him, fingers digging into his shoulder, hauling him bodily away from what he wants, Shawn grins at the pain, taking note, knowing that no matter how far down the line it takes, he’ll pay him back for it.

Years pass and the points don’t stop racking up. Even as the detective becomes tolerable, as his immunity begins to crack in the face of unrelenting force pushing against it, he remains ever an irritant. An obstacle. Part of him is endeared, but that part of him stood at a crossroads when he was 18 and sold his soul, body, and mind in exchange for limitless power that he would never get to touch for himself.

But that makes it easier to play the part, to flush when they’re pressed close together, to wet his mouth, eyes hooded and dark as he swallows, falsely nervous.

The wall between them cracks further, just enough for him to exert his power.

“Lassie,” he breathes, shuddering as he feels Lassiter succumb, as he pushes him against the wall, uses a kiss to devour the moan or laugh. The body could go either way. He claws at Lassiter’s back, pulling him closer, kissing him back like he’s dying for it, and maybe part of him is. Maybe part of him has been attracted to him from the word ‘go’. Maybe part of him gave him that nickname, built up that sense of familiarity and camaraderie.

Fortunately, that means tonight’s lesson is going to be for both of them.

Carlton Lassiter is going to learn his place.

And Shawn Spencer is going to remember who, exactly, he sold his soul to and at what cost.


	10. Hunted

He slammed into a tree, leaning heavily against it, breath rattling in his lungs. Opened up the magazine to check his rounds, swearing under his breath when he realized how few shots he had left. He’d hit a few times, but nothing lasting, nothing that hadn’t been torn out with claws in an instant. A distraction and nothing more.

His hands shook as he put the magazine back into place, unlocked the safety. Listened until he heard _something_. A twig snapping, the rustle of leaves, it didn’t matter except where it was and the answer was expected: too damn close. And he hadn’t heard it until now. Got back to running, the hand not holding his gun going to his side where Shawn’s claws had already ripped into him.

This was the problem: Shawn was too damn smart. Even with the moonlit madness clouding his mind, ripping away at his humanity and leaving the beast to feed and hunt, he knew when to be quiet, how to sneak to get closer, how to herd Carlton away from safety and deeper into territory that he didn’t know but that Shawn could easily navigate. He’d been coming here for months, after all; the wolf knew these woods inside and out.

So he was probably going to die. Almost certainly. He wasn’t an experienced hunter — an excellent marksman, true, but hunting live prey was harder, less predictable. And his job was to make sure that Shawn didn’t wake up with blood on his hands, in his mouth, a body mangled beyond recognition at his feet. Shawn had begged, cried, sobbed, and Carlton had been too much of a damn coward to kill him while he was still human. Hoping there was another way.

This was the price he paid for that, and it was quickly coming. He stumbled over a tree root, hissing through his teeth as his ankle did something wholly unpleasant. He fell to the forest floor, on a bed of leaves and twigs, and he couldn’t struggle back up. So he listened, again, closed his eyes and trusted his ears, and heard a deep rumbling growl. His eyes snapped open, weapon honed as Shawn pounced, a hulking beast with fangs and claws bared, and he pulled the trigger without hesitation.

It fell on top of him. Or, rather, he did. Slowly, the bulk deflated, the fur sinking back into his skin, and Shawn’s eyes stared lifelessly up at the moon through the canopy of leaves. Carlton felt hot tears prick at his eyes, and a sob tear out of his chest.

In the distance, he could hear another howl, and he knew the night wasn’t over.


	11. Maze of Mirrors

Shawn drew quickly away from the mirror, pulling his hand back like he’d been burned. The sight of his own body, dead on the floor of the woods somewhere, with Carlton crying and preparing for his own demise — it was too much. They’d all been like that, visages of the past or future, possibilities that hadn’t happened, or had, but not to him. The room stretched on and on, each mirror reflecting a different version of them. Most of them were bad. Most of them were his fault. He’d lost count of the deaths, just like he’d lost count of the smiles, the loves — everything he’d never get to experience in the hell he’d escaped from.

Carlton Lassiter had died before Shawn had ever been born. He’d left his soulmate a blank slate. No tattoo with their first words, no missing colors that he couldn’t see until they met, no visions of a life that wasn’t his as they shared over their psychic link. Shawn was born into a world that was already empty, that had already taken the only thing he could have ever wanted from him. The fortune teller — she’d told him about him, about his blue eyes, about how a nasty pneumonia stopped his breathing and how they hadn’t saved him in time.

Getting here had been an entirely different objective, but he’d had to. His world was empty. There had to be one, in all of these possibilities, in the endless permutations of their lives, where he had died young and left Carlton without his other half. But as far as he had wandered, as far as he had looked — there was nothing. No place for him, no hole to fill.

He didn’t even know which mirror was his original universe now. He just knew that he couldn’t go back. He had to find him, he had to-

He had to find home.

No matter how long he had to look.


	12. Shadows and Shrieks

A scream pierces through the night, making his ears ring, goosebumps rising on his skin. His eyes close, a shudder crawling up his spine, and when he opens them, he’s not at his post. His eyes are having trouble focusing, and pain is pounding through his head. But he knows this isn’t where he’s supposed to be. He was participating in a stakeout of a suspected drug dealer, not standing in an alley on the far side of town where a teenage boy is scrambling away from something that can only be Trouble with a capital T.

It’s big, vaguely human-shaped, but with nothing he can see. It’s as if someone gave the concept of Nothing a body, a tangible piece of void, slowly lumbering down the alley towards the kid who lets loose another shriek, and Carlton feels his body being pulled forward right as he decides that he can’t just sit there and watch whatever this is kill a teenager. He dashes towards it, thoughts and plans discarded.

There’s a flash of light when he slams into it, through it, positioning himself between the kid and the shadow. It has a hole in the middle that slowly starts to meld together, sickening noises squishing together as the parts come back to the whole. He doesn’t know what to do; he doesn’t know where to begin. Training kicks in - save the civilian - and he reaches back, grabbing the kid’s hand before he runs through it again.

There’s another flash of light.

When he opens his eyes, they’re where the stakeout’s supposed to be, but there’s no one there. He releases the kid’s hand and looks around impatiently, ignoring him as he mumbles about having to go back, about stopping it. He looks up suddenly and asked, “Uh. Why are we here?”

The truth is that he doesn’t know, but like hell is he telling some punkass teen that. “We had to get away from that thing.”

“But we’re, like. Miles. A lot of miles away.”

He looks at the kid wondering how on earth he knows this place by sight, and he finds himself staring. It’s not the unkempt hair or the baggy clothes that look familiar, but something about his face. It’s the first time he’s really looked at him, and yet there’s something unsettlingly familiar about him. “Who are you?”

“Shawn Spencer,” the kid says carelessly. “But seriously? Did we have to come this far? It’s gonna take me hours to get back-”

“Wait, wait. Spencer. Like Det. Henry Spencer.”

The kid groans. “You were a cop? Figures.”

“I am,” he corrects harshly. He’s heard stories around the station about tiny Shawn who never lost a game of poker even when he was seven, about the boy who held the highest score in the shooting range until Carlton came along, about Shawn who could sit down at a detective’s desk and tell them in moments who their primary suspect should be. It seems like everyone has a story about him, up to and including Carlton himself, who was present when Shawn was arrested.

However, nothing of the irreverent punk remains. There’s just a sad look in his eyes as he looks Carlton over. “You were here before.”

“I was at a stakeout, yes,” he sneers, feeling unsettled and not liking it one bit.

“Guy was high as a kite and he saw you all watching him. Six rounds fired before the police put him down, at least three of which hit you, Junior Detective Lassiter.”

He blinks, feeling the world around him slip, and slide, because… it had happened, hadn’t it? But he’d been here, just moments ago, in the car with his senior partner, and sure, the front door had opened, but after that…?

His head hurts, and there are hands on his shoulders, an embrace pulling him in. “It’s okay, man. It’s always like this.”

Carlton shoves him back, glares. “What did you do to me?”

“I, um. I must have summoned you on accident, dude. Sorry.”

“Summoned me?” he demands.

“Yeah, I’m, like, 1/4th banshee on my mother’s side, and I sort of. Yknow.” He smiles, weakly. “Can you blame me? That thing was coming after me, right?”

“This is all bullshit.”

“It’s not. Your spirit must have been lingering between worlds, and when I screamed for help, you answered.”

“But I’m solid!”

“To me. Again, banshee powers. We scream, we touch, we, uh, kind of need help sometimes.”

Carlton walks over deliberately to the nearest wall and reaches out only to have his hand pass through the brick. He jumps about a mile in the air, breathing hard and fast. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, usually, if I call out, it’s someone I know. I’ve gotten pretty friendly with most of the ghosts in the city. And they- That thing you did, with the light, when you went through it? They know how to do that. And I really need us to go back and do it now.”

“Then call someone else,” he seethes.

“I can’t. I screamed twice, remember? Both times, it called you. For whatever reason, you’ve gotta help me with this one.”

“Make your own way back.” He shrugs past him and starts walking. To where, he doesn’t know, just away, as far away as he can.

“People will die,” Shawn calls out, and his feet reluctantly stop moving. “Those things, the shadows, they’re a manifestation of the hatred a soul can bleed into the world around it. If it sets up camp in that alley, it’s gonna pull people in, and anyone who steps in isn’t gonna step back out again. And we only have until dawn to get rid of it before it settles, and they’re much harder to extract when that’s happened.”

“And then? Will you let me go?” Carlton doesn’t want to believe him, doesn’t want to believe any of this, but, for whatever reason, he can’t get himself to leave. He can’t move away. 

“Yeah, sure thing. Like I said, didn’t really mean to call you in the first place. Just sort of happened.”

Carlton sighs, turns around and slowly walks back to him. Holds out his hand. “Just for tonight.”

“Sure,” Shawn says after a hesitation that lets Carlton know that this is going to be a recurrence, but that’s something he doesn’t have time to worry about right now. They, apparently, have people to save.


	13. Urban Legend

Shawn’s the one who decided to bust out the Ouija board. It follows, therefore, that Shawn should be the one who has to go deal with the thing that is ruining their living room. There’s a lot of arguing about that point, mostly that Gus feels that Shawn, while culpable for the initial opening of the doorway to another dimension, was not the one who interrupted the spirit they summoned by declaring that it was ‘stupid’ and flipping the board off the table. That had been Lassie.

Lassie reminds them both that Juliet made the last round of ‘girly’ drinks that had them all so drunk that their whispered conversation is a farce at best.

Juliet looks offended and says something about someone not being able to handle their alcohol or the ghost that’s tearing up their home and will, most assuredly be coming for them next.

Shawn suggests giving them Gus, who is the most innocent of all four of them, in the hopes that a pure, untainted soul will sate her bloodlust, and perhaps three of them can survive if nothing el-

Shawn gets slapped in the face. Gus is suddenly all on board with the original plan of sending Shawn in to talk to it, consequences be damned.

Shawn rubs his cheek and says flippantly that the spirits are telling him that Gus wanted to perform this ritual on this day because something about increasing the certainty of getting laid, which is laughable considering he has three partners, but who is Shawn to judge Gussy-wussy’s planning.

That earns him a glare from all sides and jumbled shouting about pretending to be a psychic when there is an actual fucking ghost in their home.

Shawn holds his hands up in defeat as the door to the hallway slams open, and two blood red eyes gleam and a soft voice says _I fooooound yoooou_ , and abruptly all four of them are screaming and running and holing up until morning. Shawn ends up in the bathroom. Juliet, in one of the bedrooms alone.

Gus, against all the odds, does actually get lucky. Turns out fear is yet another of Lassiter’s turn-ons. Who knew, right?


	14. Midnight

Midnight comes, the moon rising high overhead, gleaming and fat and full as it shines onto the world below. Curses break, magic spells are over; midnight is an end and a beginning, and more of the old magic of Santa Barbara gives way to the new. Shawn’s still learning, but the learning process is mostly through feeling, his eyes kept closed as he reaches out and sees with the magic that has been inside him, unawakened, untapped, until that night after he’d graduated high school, the day before he took off, when a woman old enough to be his great grandmother had told him he was destined for great things.

Shawn had, understandably, run as far away and as fast as humanly possible.

He had, also, eventually, come home, and now, the city was under his supervision. His mentor had taught him the basics, then literally vanished in a puff of smoke that had Shawn coughing for days after.

He hears the door to the roof opening, and feels around, grin widening when he recognizes the tense energy, the tentative approach, the way Lassie almost jumps out of his skin when Shawn gives him a tiny little static shock. “Stop that,” he hisses, practically skittering away.

Shawn’s not psychic. Never was, never has been. Doesn’t even know if ‘real’ psychics exist. But he is this. The overseer, the man behind the curtain, the great and powerful Oz, and as much as Lassie had complained about it and tried to reject it and keeps trying to deny it, he comes back time after time to see Shawn work. He sits in silence near the edge of the roof, peering out as flashes of gold zip through the city. And Shawn, ever the show-off, tells him what they do. “That makes sure the buses don’t break down in transit tomorrow. That one makes sure the major traffic jams cause 30% less road rage.”

“Not much,” Lassie murmurs. Shawn zaps him again.

“More than you can do, sassy Lassie.”

What he doesn’t tell Lassie is the number of spells he puts on the station, on Buzz and Jules and him, especially. Protective spells. Spells to keep them out of trouble. Spells to prevent escalation so that they can resolve cases without anyone else being hurt. Preventing crime, he can’t do, but he can try to prevent the rest. He has to try.

By the time he’s done, he feels drained — and people wonder why he sleeps in until noon — and he plops down next to Lassie. “I think I’ve been cursed.”

“With this?” Lassiter asks skeptically.

“No. But I’ll die at midnight tonight.”

“It’s past midnight.”

“I’ll die at 1 AM,” Shawn adjusts easily, “if I don’t get a kiss from my true love.”

“Do you want me to call Guster?”

Shawn doesn’t glare at him because that’s what he wants. “It’s gonna be so tragic. I won’t have an heir, so all the spells holding the city together will eventually expire. Everything will fall apart. And I’ll have died so young, so alone.”

“I’ll probably stick around long enough to watch.”

Shawn gives in and looks at him. Lassie watches him, smirking. “I could push you off the roof. That’ll bring me joy in my final moments.”

“But what would you do without your ‘true love’?” Shawn makes a face at him and Lassie laughs before turning out to look at the starless expanse of sky, at the buildings they can see from here. Out at his city — their city — and there’s something soft and fond in Lassie’s face that only makes Shawn love him more.

He can’t help himself. Or, he could, but he doesn’t want to. Lassie leans into his touch as he cups his cheek, turns his head, kisses him softly. “Curse broken?” Lassie murmurs against his lips.

“Better try a few more times. Just to be safe, y’know?”


	15. Haunted House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the same AU as Haunting 101 and can be read as part of that 'verse!

The smell of coffee brewing woke him up, pushing through the half-sleepy haze until he was reluctantly sitting up, rubbing at his eyes, preparing to face the day. Turned off his alarm — force of habit made him keep it, though he was used to waking up like this now — and slowly padded down the hall. Could hear some soft music playing, lulling him even as he walked, dragged his feet towards inevitable responsibility.

Shawn still couldn’t interact with things brought from the outside. He’d tried multiple times to make Carlton breakfast before finally resigning himself to getting everything else ready that he could. A plate and a fork, the frying pan sitting on the stove — it was nicely domestic, and he found himself smiling sadly. They were doing their best with what they had, neither one able to make grand meaningful gestures thanks to Shawn’s demise. There was only so much either of them could do, and it sucked to know that this was the best they could do.

But they _were_ trying.

“Hey, don’t look like that when I’m trying to woo you.”

Felt his robe settle comfortably on his shoulders and reflexively reached back to put his arms into the sleeves, unable to keep himself from shivering at the chill of Shawn’s presence. “Sorry,” he mumbled, meaning it genuinely, but it would inevitably lead to the same spiraling conversation about how guilty he felt that this was happening now, that Shawn had to stay here, that they had never gotten to be together before Shawn died, that Shawn had died at all.

“Stop,” Shawn murmured in his ear. “Please.”

He took a deep breath and forced his mind to heel. “I’m guessing you want a real breakfast.”

Shawn floated over his shoulder into view, raising his eyebrows. “No, I enjoy spending my afterlife eating bran cereal like I’m 80 years old and waiting to die.”

Shrugged easily. “You did things out of order.”

“You’re too young to have resigned yourself to bland high-fiber generic-brand cereal. You don’t have work today, so I want something fancy.” With a waggle of his fingers, he picked up the fuzzy belt of Carlton’s robe and swatted it at his ass.

Felt himself smiling in spite of the uneasy emotions that continued to ball up in his stomach. This was practically normal for them now, going from somber to playful in a matter of moments. Living with someone 24/7 either brought people closer or pushed them apart, and he didn’t have the words to articulate the full extent of his feelings that, as unusual as the circumstances were, he and Shawn had come together.

“And what do I get for all of the effort?” he teased, already stepping into the kitchen and browsing the fridge for the makings of a decent omelet.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Shawn promised, voice sultry. Had the robe press down, like fingers trailing down his spine.

“It’s always food and sex with you,” Carlton pointed out, busying himself with prep work.

“That’s not true,” Shawn said, springing away and back into the air, hovering over the stovetop. “Sometimes, it’s murder or robbery. To spice things up.” Shawn’s presence had grown stronger at the station, too. It was helpful, but it could also be a handful. Especially since no one else could see or hear him.

“Food, sex, and crime.”

“I’m the world’s first ghost consultant.”

“Does it really count, since we can’t pay you?” Turned on one of the burners and began to cook.

“You put a roof over my head and a fire in my heart,” Shawn said, reaching out to cover one of Carlton’s hands with his own. “Doesn’t that count?”

“Because you’re haunting my house,” he said, voice gentler than he’d intended, gaze warm when he looked away from his work to Shawn.

“Excuse me, this isn’t a haunted _house_ , it’s a haunted _home_.”

Carlton chucked softly and conceded with a nod as he finished making up breakfast for the both of them.


	16. Masquerade Murder

“You aren’t in costume.”

He intends not to acknowledge the little lordling, but he’s close, leaning closer, wheedling and irritating and knowing that he’s interfering. “I’m on duty. Not all of us get to enjoy the revelries of the upper class.”

“So if I asked you to dance…?”

That earns him a look. Shawn’s changed, grown, no longer a spoiled, arrogant, entitled child, but he’s as much the annoyance as he was when he left, when he abandoned his duty only to return years later and claim it again. This event marks the reunification of the house, a celebration that had been more Shawn’s idea than Henry’s, though he has to admit it’s clever. This puts to bed all the true rumors that Shawn abandoned their holdings to their eventual fate, and instead makes it seem as if he was expected back at this moment.

The house had struggled, but it had pulled through, and now there’s a feast and a ball, musicians flowing seamlessly from one song to the next.

“We have no idea who all is in attendance. If a spy or assassin were to try and slip in — now would be the time. As captain of your father’s guard, it is my duty-”

“Save it, Lassie,” Shawn says, impertinent, grinning. “It’ll create an even bigger splash if you don’t do as I ask.”

Looking up, he realizes that he’s right. They’re being stared at. Shawn, the center of attention, has deliberately shifted it to them both.

“Why?” he demands, unyielding.

“I recall a certain guard saying that I would never learn how to fight, and that I would never learn to dance. It seems the latter is more appropriate, given the circumstances. Though I’ll gladly fetch my sword if I must.” There’s a twinkle in his eyes, a certain impishness to his grin. It can’t be that simple. Shawn just- he has always enjoyed trying to get a rise out of him. Succeeding, often, unfortunately.

“It would be inappropriate.”

“Because of your divorce,” Shawn says as if it doesn’t cut him to the quick, doesn’t hurt as if it happened yesterday and not years ago now.

“And the differences in our status.”

Shawn rolls his eyes fondly. “I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m asking for one dance.”

They really are drawing a lot of attention; he’ll have to change his post once this is over, and yes, he realizes that he’s given in, that he’s already resigned himself to giving Shawn what he’d asked for. “Fine.” Shawn grins up at him and reaches up to pull his mask back down over his eyes. “Only one.”

Shawn flits off to speak to someone else without another word, and Carlton almost suspects that it was a trick, a test to see if he would concede, but when the music next changes, Shawn’s at his side again, taking him by the hand, leading him out to the floor.

He hasn’t danced in years. The last time might have been at his and Victoria’s wedding. He can feel heat rising up the back of his neck, tingling the tips of his ears, expecting humiliation or embarrassment, but Shawn is surprisingly gracious as he leads him. There’s something in his expression, warm and satisfied, but not smug. “Did you miss me at all, while I was gone?” He murmurs, not quite looking him in the eyes.

“It was quiet. Given my job, you’d expect me to be pleased… but I…”

“I missed you. I missed you laughing at me when someone disarmed me, or the way you’d smile when Henry found out what I’d been getting up to. I missed going on patrol with you.”

“You missed distracting me on patrol.”

Shawn laughs. “Maybe. Is that so wrong? You’re letting me distract you now.”

It’s true. Carlton hasn’t looked away from him since they started, hasn’t surveyed his surroundings, hasn’t been checking and rechecking, and if Henry sees him, he could be in some very big trouble that he most certainly can’t afford, and yet he can’t force himself away. As much of a brat, as much of an idiot as little lord Spencer could be, he kept things interesting. He made the world seem fantastic and made of magic and wonder just by existing in it. He always had.

He’s been drawn to it for a long time, but never like this. But then, until this moment, Shawn had never been an adult, had never been capable of returning any kind of affection he might have had. “I shouldn’t.”

“Yet here we are,” Shawn muses, and they’re so close as the music fades out, so close, and he could- if he wanted to, if he let himself be weak.

There’s a blood-curdling scream, and Carlton’s head snaps up and away, looking towards the sound. Several party-goers are wielding concealable weapons, and someone is already dead, bleeding out onto the floor. “Get out of here.”

“Lassie, not without-”

He shoves him further into the keep, and draws his own blade. He’s outnumbered, possibly outmatched, probably very likely about to learn what those blades feel like when they slice into his skin. “Protect the guests,” he barks back to the other guards. “Protect the Spencers.”

If they want to go any farther, they’ll have to go through him first.


	17. Voice In The Night

He can’t sleep.

Every time he tries, closes his eyes, reclines in his chair or on his bed, it whispers in his ear, “He’s going to kill you.”

Images flash through his head, things that have never happened, things that won’t.

Kicking the back of his legs until his knees give way, the barrel of his service weapon pressed against the base of his skull. A hand wrapped firmly around his throat, his own hands straining against the ties he’d allowed him to put on. A knife plunging into his midsection, his body going cold though the intrusion felt as hot as a brand.

“Fuck off.”

“You’re going to die. It’s going to be him.”

He reaches for his piece, thumbing the safety off as he looks for the thing that’s been haunting him for weeks, ever since their first date. It’s always like this, always waiting for the moment he opens his heart so it can tear into him while he’s at his weakest.

That’s what it makes him feel like. Weak. Afraid. Powerless.

“You’re gonna have to try harder than that,” he grits out at the darkness.

It will. He can feel the familiar stirrings of his paranoia, the constant insatiable urge to double-guess what he knows is true, the dreaded _what if_.

Shawn’s grin turned as a weapon against him, wide and bright and cold and _So stupid, Lassie. You’re so stupid_.

A kick hitting him in the gut, bile rising instantly in his throat, coughing desperately. _Still think anyone can love you? Still. Think. You’re. Worth. It?_ Punctuating each word with a new kick. A delighted laugh comes when he spits out blood, and Carlton bolts upright, heart thundering in his ears.

“I am,” he tells the thing inside his head, the darkness of his room. “You won’t win.”

Something laughs cruelly, and he lays his head back down, staring restlessly at the ceiling until the waves of self loathing have passed and dawn peeks through his blinds.


	18. Blood Pact

He held out his hand, blood pooling in the heel of his palm, dripping slowly onto the ground. It hurt, stung, almost as deep as the knowledge that what they were doing was the most unsanitary thing Gus had ever done in his life. Shawn’s hand shook as he dug the pocket knife into his other hand, watching blood well at the cut. “Shawn,” Gus murmured, suddenly feeling a flutter in his stomach that this wasn’t right, that they needed to stop and go get some bandages and something to disinfect their matching wounds. “We shouldn’t.”

“Gus,” Shawn said the way he always did when Gus was overthinking it, when Gus was going to chicken out. “I’m gonna get in a lot of trouble for cutting both of us, so something should come out of it.” Held out his hand, red and bloodied and Gus’s weak stomach flutter, vision beginning to swim. “Come on. This way we’ll be together forever.”

“We’re gonna be together forever anyway.”

“I know,” Shawn said. “But what if you get into that smart-kids school, or when you go to Harvard or something?”

“You could come with me,” he reminded him. Shawn was just as smart as him, smarter, even. He just didn’t act like it.

“No, I can’t. I’m gonna be the best cop in Santa Barbara.” Gave him a grin and held out his own hand, his blood splattering in the dirt near his best friend’s. “Come on, Gus. What’s the worst that could happen?”

\-----

“What’s the worst that could happen? That’s what you said to me,” he hissed under his breath, crouching behind some crates in the hopes that the flying bullshit wouldn’t catch one of them or the other. “What’s the worst that could happen? Let me tell you — it was this.” His hands had begun to shake long ago, an ancient scar opening, spilling his blood on the concrete floor beneath their feet.

“In my defense, I was six.”

“You were seven.”

“ _You_ were seven,” Shawn hissed back at him, clutching his hand against his shirt, trying to staunch the flow of blood. “Besides, this isn’t that bad. We’ve definitely had worse.”

“Yeah, when you got _shot_.” Gus still felt the ache in his shoulder sometimes, like he could feel the pain on his other hand from Shawn’s open cut. Shawn felt his pain, too, like the way his right ear is pulsing from the explosion that went off too close to his head.

Gemini had been looking for those like them, who performed a forbidden rite as they had, who had bound themselves to another. They wanted to sever every other bond, to be the last two standing, though neither Gemini had introduced themselves as separate individuals. Gus didn’t think they were anymore. That somewhere along the way, all this absorbing of power — like a twin eating its sibling in the womb — morphed them into something else.

Two laughs suddenly echoed through the warehouse, and Gus could feel the unease crawl up Shawn’s spine. “Bickering?”

They spoke together, and it was honestly going beyond unsettling into straight up creepy. “You are unworthy of the bond you created.”

Shawn met his eyes, a scowl twisting on his lips, and Gus gave him a firm nod. Together, they shouted back. “Say _what_?”

They broke apart, skittering away. Shawn would distract them while Gus speed-dialed Juliet to get backup here as quickly as she could get here. “You don’t even know us!” Shawn called out, and Gus heard another small explosion, but no pain bloomed. Fine, he was fine. “We’re more worthy than you could ever dream of being!”

“Oh _really_?” Gemini laughed. “Then where’s Burton? Where’s your other half?”

“Over here, suckers!” He yelled, scampering away with his phone. Heard Juliet pick up the line as the crate he’d been sitting behind slammed into the wall. Quickly told her the address and begged her to get backup here _now_. Then got to his feet and took off running as he slipped his bloody phone into his khakis.

“You think acting like one person makes you better than us?” Shawn demanded, voice echoing off the walls. “It takes two to tango. You wouldn’t even be what you are if you weren’t two people, and instead you’re trying to become one. That fucked up or what? Back to Gus in the studio!”

Gus found himself smiling. “That was our brave correspondent Shawn Spencer in the field today with two people deluding themselves. We’ll be back to check in with Shawn in just a few-” Saw the tell-tale flash of light seconds before the sound of an explosion rushed his ears, the force of something supernaturally powerful knocking him off his feet and painfully back, the air rushing out of his lungs.

“Gus!” Shawn yelled, sounding breathless himself.

“We,” Gemini spoke, venomous as they rounded the corner together, eyes glowing white and connected at the hands, “are more than you can ever hope to be.” A slow smile spread across their faces, too wide with too many teeth, and Gus tried to shuffle back, leaving bloodied palm prints on the floor as he desperately tried to breathe. “And now you’re going to die. Alone. All alone.”

“Bull _shit_!” Shawn shouted, throwing himself between their connected hands, and Gus could feel something tangible snap, and he lost his breath all over again, vision swimming. “You,” Shawn reached out between them, hands on their heads, keeping them separated like some playground bully and slowly the light faded from their eyes, “don’t know a single thing about him or me. You don’t even know anything about each other. So shut _up_.” Watched as they struggled before they slowly looked at one another as if seeing for the first time. Shawn pushed them apart again, and reluctantly let them go. Gemini stayed separate. And Gus was aware, too, that after a lifetime together, after all the shit they’d been through, that he was separate, too. That breaking their connection had severed their own.

Shawn held out his hand, chest rising and falling rapidly, and Gus didn’t have to be psychic to know he was terrified out of his mind. Shook his head and held out his bleeding hand instead. “I didn’t survive two decades tied to you to lose it over nothing.”

Slowly, Shawn smiled, wide and bright and he reached out with his own, instantly reestablishing what they’d just lost. Shawn pulled him to his feet, and Gus pulled him back, close, feeling both of their hearts pounding as one as he pressed his lips against his best friend’s.

Then, of course, the police arrived, to find a half-destroyed warehouse, two minors looking a little dazed and confused, and Shawn and Gus kissing like they’d just found the ability to breathe through the other.

They had a lot of explaining to do.


	19. Hollow Inside

He doesn’t feel.

He’s not _supposed_ to _feel_.

As an iDroid, it’s counterproductive. It interferes. It gets in the way of cold logic, necessary calculations and creates a lot of unnecessary friction. His job is to serve and protect to the best of his abilities. Mankind is fallible. His programming is not. He has been designed from the ground up to make the correct decisions, to be unbiased and fair and just.

Overrides should not exist. They don’t, as far as he knows, so that he cannot be hacked, cannot be compromised, and yet here he is, hesitating, a civilian’s blood on his hands, and his duty is to subdue and arrest the person responsible, and he can’t move.

Can’t because Shawn Spencer is dying.

He knows he is. Even if the ambulance arrives, it won’t be in time to stop the flow of blood, and Shawn’s heartbeat is already struggling to register. His hands are pressing on the wound, trying to stop the bleeding out, but it’s not enough. And that means he has to leave. He has to go perform his duty and leave this to his human relatives, his friends, his-

“Lassie.” Shawn’s hand weakly raises to cup his sleek, plastic cheek. “D-don’t leave me.”

It’s an order. Orders aren’t overrides, but it’s an excuse. It’ll probably get him reformatted before they put him out into the field. He’ll lose… all of this, every moment from the first arrest to this. Every insolent smile. Every cajoling attempt to get him to break free of his programming. Every laugh that he struggles to understand because he _wants_ to.

He’ll lose it all. But he’ll have these last moments. Shawn won’t have to die alone.

Will it mean anything, if it’s gone, afterward? If there’s no one to remember it?

“Look at me,” Shawn pleads, and Carlton doesn’t resist, indulgently taking him in, selfishly clinging now that he knows it’s all going to go away. “G-guess I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

“I don’t have hair,” he argues pointlessly.

“Out of your motherboard.”

He has the ability to smile, though he rarely uses it. He does, now; another illogical impulse, to comfort the dying. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

“How many times did you warn me? I m-mean, this was inevitable.”

“It was,” he agrees, feeling somehow numb when he’s had nothing else his entire existence. Shawn laughs, desperate, and Carlton shakes his head. “I fail to see the source of your amusement, Spencer.”

“I’m scared,” he explains, because he always has. He’s always wanted Carlton to understand, to be ‘in’ on the joke rather than the outside. “I’m so scared, and you’re, you’re not even going to miss me.”

“Seeing as I’ll likely be reformatted, that is, unfortunately, true.”

“Unfortunately?”

“Whatever ‘life’ I have, you have played a major part. I don’t wish to lose you and then your memory as well.”

“So you would have missed me?”

“Every moment of every day,” he murmurs because it’s the truth, because he has. He has longed for companionship and friendship and the unpredictability Shawn has brought to his life. He has loved being challenged.

Shawn uses the last of his strength to push himself up, to press his lips clumsily against Carlton’s own, and while Carlton cannot feel it, he appreciates the sentiment. He appreciates knowing, for however long it lasts, that he is loved. Shawn collapses as quickly as he sat up, and Carlton catches him, holds him close, and ducks his head close. “I’m sorry,” Shawn gasps. “I should have- I-”

“I love you too.”

He cannot cry.

He cannot feel, but it has nothing to do with his programming or his lack of humanity.

Shawn’s heart stops, and Carlton’s — nonexistent as it may be — breaks.


	20. Don't Open The Door

There was one rule his new landlord had imposed on him. He could have wild parties, could play music too loud at all hours of the night, keep any number of weird pets, could paint the walls and put nails wherever he felt like. The only rule was that he could not open the door at the end of the hall.

Shawn, naturally, agreed. Stole some police tape from the station and put it all over the door. That hadn’t helped, and Shawn wasn’t exactly sure why it hadn’t except that he had some kind of Pavlovian response now that police tape meant his life would get interesting and he’d eventually get paid. But it did serve a purpose, and when he walked close to the door to go to his room near the hall and had that stray thought of _How bad could it possibly be?_ The tape stood starkly out and pushed him back.

So, okay, it was working. He listened, sometimes, at the door, or checked under the crack between the door and the floor to see if he could see anything, but he never opened it. He walked around the building and down some creepy alley to assess whether or not there was another big room beyond the door, but no. The landlord never asked to come in to check on the door, and he never asked if Shawn had looked.

Which, really, only made him more curious. Was it a rule just to see if he would obey the rules? Shawn hated rules like that and always had. Or was there really something behind the non-sinister door? Was it something important, or just, like, a camera, to catch him if he broke the rules?

Shawn asked some of the other residents, but no one else had a door they weren’t allowed to open, and frankly, they seemed a little weirded out that he did.

Okay. That was fine. Probably.

But.

And it was always the ‘but’s that got him, the curiosity that killed the poor little cat, the dreaded need to know.

But what if there was, like, a literal skeleton in that closet? What if he was an accessory to a crime? Or, worse, what if something totally awesome was being kept from him, and he was some kind of guardian to without his knowledge ahead of time? Like, sure, make him responsible for the portal to the future or something, but at least tell him first.

He asked the others.

Gus scoffed. “Just don’t look in the closet, Shawn. Easy as that.”

Juliet considered. “I mean, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to stay there anyway. But if I did… I probably wouldn’t open it.”

Lassiter’s response was instantaneous: “Open the door.”

Shawn blinked owlishly at him. “What?”

Lassie didn’t look away from where he was cleaning his service weapon, the motions smooth, automatic. “You open the door immediately. If it’s nothing, then it’s just some stupid prank which will, in all likelihood, be followed by other stupid pranks, making the enjoyment of living there a moot point. If there’s something you weren’t meant to see, something illegal, you call the authorities, and we put that scum behind bars before he has enough time to realize that you opened the damn thing.”

“That is not the answer I expected from you.”

“Well, it’s the answer you’re getting,” he muttered. “Landlords usually have copies of their occupants’ keys. Chances are, he’s sneaking into your apartment and either hiding or taking out drugs, and waiting for you to take the fall for it when he gets found out.”

The tape had never been broken, but that didn’t mean there weren’t drugs in there when Shawn moved in. He hesitated. “But what if he has a camera set up behind the door? Or some kind of elaborate system that makes a gun trigger to shoot me?”

That caught Lassie’s attention. He looked up, a certain glimmer in his eyes. “I have a bulletproof vest.”

“You have, or the department has?” Shawn asked like he hadn’t stolen at least three pieces of department property including two of Lassie’s staplers in the last month.

“ _I_ have,” he said like he was offended.

Shawn bit back a dozen other questions — like _Why?_ or _How often do you wear it?_ or _Do you sleep with it on?_

He settled for: “Wanna come over to my place?”

And okay, he probably deserved the lecture about ‘borrowing’ police property — Shawn didn’t tell him about the staplers — but he really didn’t want to do this alone, and Lassie seemed the safest choice. Calm in the face of danger. Willing to take a bullet to prove a point. Exactly the sort of person Shawn needed on call 24/7, honestly. 

“Ready?” Shawn asked, hiding bravely in his room in case something exploded or shot.

“Yes,” Lassiter said unnecessarily when he was doing all of the work himself. Slowly reached up to tear down the tape and then went for the knob.

Shawn waited, listened, watched, as the door swung open with a long, sustained creak.

Empty. Not just empty, but something even emptier than that. Like a sustained shadow or a black hole that wasn’t sucking or pulling, just harmlessly sitting behind what had been a closed door. Shawn balled up a piece of junk mail and threw it at the emptiness, watching as it disappeared within.

“I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting this,” Shawn said.

The emptiness suddenly began moving, shifting, and Lassiter took a reflexive step backwards, aiming his gun squarely at the void.

Something stepped out, the emptiness peeling away like silly putty until a mirror version of Lassie stood in front of it. “What the hell,” both muttered at the same time, before the double brought up his gun and shot without any hesitation. If it weren’t for Shawn throwing himself bodily at Lassie, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have been hit. “Spencer!” They both spoke again, and another bullet fired.

“Come on,” Shawn said, feeling his skin crawl when something else used his voice. Standing at the entryway to the portal was an identical twin, grinning his grin, something sinister kindling in the eyes. He grabbed Lassie’s hand and yanked him towards the bedroom door, slamming it shut and locking it before rushing to the window and the fire escape that stretched out beside it.

For once, Lassie didn’t demand explanations or question his thinking. Just followed him right the hell out.

They were only just starting to learn why they shouldn’t have opened the door.


	21. Cold As The Dead

His ragged breath puffed into the air, his lungs burning with the effort it took to take each one, the cold filling him from the outside in. “This sucks,” a voice said from next to him. Carlton curled up into a tighter ball, ignoring the statement of the obvious. He didn’t have the energy to spare. “I mean, what were the chances? Hypothermia in the middle of summer.”

“The evil Santa Claus was a surprise,” he muttered grimly.

Eternal winter. Eternal Christmas. Eternal cold; damn the consequences.

Shawn laughed breathlessly, rocking next to him and shuddering. “Sorry about your gun.”

_“I can take the shot! I can hit him!”_

_“Spencer, there’s no way. Not from this distance, not unless you’re-”_

_“My dad. My dad trained me. For as long as I can remember, to be the best officer in the entire world; I can hit any target with any weapon. Please trust me!”_

_“After you just admitted to lying about everything?”_

_“When would be a better time, Carly?”_

He shook the memory from his head, unable to deal with what had come next, the boom that had become silence.

Immortal. Improbable. But the hole had healed as instantly as it appeared, and eyes glittering with malice had turned their way. “You did hit him. I was wrong about that.”

“Not that it mattered.”

“No.” He tugged his jacket tighter around himself. “It didn’t.” Struggled to get to his feet. “I’ve- I’ve gotta keep moving.”

“Lassie, it doesn’t matter.”

“I have to do something, or I’m gonna freeze to death.” Rubbed at his arms, trying to simulate heat only to find that he couldn’t feel the movements or any type of friction. He looked up at Shawn, only to find him staring back sadly, a candy cane sticking through his midsection and blood covering his lips. Shawn tilted his head, and Carlton looked, unsurprised to see his body, curled up and no longer shaking, snowflakes gathering on his hair and lashes.

“Someone else is gonna have to save the day this time.”


	22. Nightmares

McNab fell asleep first, twitching, mumbling; apparently, he could be quite a chatterbox even when unconscious. Juliet recognized the woman who stood over him, scolding, holding a red pen and crossing X over and over on their friend. The lady who supervised the detective exam didn’t respond to her real name, but she responded to being shot.

They all did.

McNab sat up quickly, dark eyes wide and searching before realization slammed into him again.

The problem was, of course, that these things were infinite. As long as they kept falling asleep — and they would — they would have to waste ammo to send the nightmares back to the hell they’d crawled out of. They had no way of knowing how the rest of the city was doing. The station had become their bastion in these dire times, venturing outside to see the carnage wrecked by those who never woke — it wasn’t exactly high on their priority list. Once they ran out of ammo, they’d have to think of something else.

They would have to keep people awake. McNab’s worst nightmare was something they could deal with, but then there were others.

Woody had fallen first, alone in the morgue, visions of his ex-wives as zombies overtaking him before he could wake up and fight.

They had crawled up and been gunned down immediately, Lassiter’s finger twitchy on the trigger but his aim impeccable as usual.

Shawn wasn’t looking forward to seeing what happened when Lassiter’s exhaustion finally caught up with him, when he finally succumbed.

Shawn wasn’t looking forward to everyone else seeing the things that lurked unseen and unheard in the depths of his own mind, but he could only hope that it wouldn’t be _too_ bad.

Gus’s head was lolling onto Juliet’s shoulder, a baseball bat teetering from his fingers.

Vick was up, pacing, on the phone with her husband to make sure that neither he nor their daughter slept.

Henry wasn’t picking up his phone. Shawn swore beneath his breath and redialed, keen eyes scanning the station, needing to be aware, needing to be ready the next time someone drifted off.

Watched with sick fascination as Lassiter walked in from the outside, holding a machine gun and taking aim at the secretary behind her desk. Forgot, for a moment, that the real Lassie was sitting right beside him until he heard him snarl, “Perfect,” as he stood, squared his aim, and shot. The vision took the bullet and dissipated. Dobson jerked awake at his desk, and Lassiter barked, “Dobson, take a walk!” If he felt anything about being part of someone’s nightmares, he didn’t give any indication.

It was only a matter of time before they all fell, one by one, to the allure of sleep.

Juliet was first. A pit opened up beneath her, long and dark, and she would have fallen if not for Gus dropping the bat and pulling her away. They dropped a chair down it; that seemed to ‘kill’ it as much as anything else had.

Lassiter was next, and they almost didn’t catch him in time. He had gone quiet hours before, and if not for McNab asking him for his coffee order, Shawn wasn’t sure they would have seen the thin, transparent sphere that surrounded him or the blue tint to his lips. Shawn picked up the baseball bat and shattered the snowglobe around him, and Lassiter’s eyes were slow to open, his hands shaking. They huddled around him to keep him warm.

Gus’s anxiety kept him going until the inevitable crash. Shawn walked into the room to find a version of him already there, palming a knife and sitting beside his best friend, and no one seemed to notice. “Gus!” He’d yelled from clear across the station, and he’d seen Lassie go for his gun. “He’s got a knife!” In the end, Gus got a cut on his neck, superficial but proof that what they were up against could inflict very real damage. He’d had trouble meeting Shawn’s eyes after, and Shawn couldn’t bring himself to ask how long Gus had thought that he might be the death of him.

Shawn was as vigilant as he could be, downing caffeine and walking when he felt sleep closing in, until his limbs would no longer obey, and he could see it all unraveling, could see everyone in jeopardy and there was nothing he could do but stare and scream silently as the people he cared about most in the world were slaughtered in front of his eyes.

“Shawn! Shawn!” Voices around him snapped him out of his sleep, and Shawn sat up, drenched in sweat, shaking and throat raw from screaming. Gus and Juliet each held one of his hands, and he became aware of his surroundings, the IV in his hand, the heart monitor racing at his bedside. Lassie crashed through the door with nurses in tow, looking like he’d seen a ghost until he saw that Shawn was awake.

“Wh-what? What happened?”

“You were in an accident on that damned motorcycle. You’ve been out all day, and they said it’d be longer.” Lassiter leaned on the edge of his bed. “When you started screaming…”

“You scared us half to death,” Juliet summed up.

“And you’re getting rid of that bike, Shawn,” Gus said sternly.

Shawn, overwhelmed with reality and no longer facing an endless nightmare, broke down sobbing.


	23. When The Bell Tolls

They took the church bells down after the first week, but they still rang, echoing through the city, through the dead countryside that stretched on past the empty buildings and the still, silent highways. They’re running low on supplies, on sacrifices, on hope. They’d hoped the bell would stop the summoning, but it hadn’t. Every day, the same time, the same place, the heavens opened up, and the angel wore the sun like a crown.

It spoke in a language none of them knew yet all understood. “Atone for your sins lest you be judged.”

Atonement came in many forms, and it seemed as if there was no way to apologize for it all. “Why are we being judged based on all of humanity?” That was Lassie yelling. “We’re just a few people.”

“You are the only ones left.”

That made Shawn’s blood run cold. It said that, but they’d all agreed, it was probably lying.

Probably.

“You may as well kill us, since that’s what it’s going to take to atone for what all of humanity did!”

Shawn waited, held his breath, but there was no sudden lashing out, no price to pay for rebellion.

Seven of them. Him, Lassie, Gus, Jules, McNab, Henry, Vick.

The number wasn’t lost on him.

“Shawn Spencer.”

He felt compelled to stand, his body out of his own control, answering a call implanted into it aeons ago. However, his tongue had to be willing, and Shawn was most definitely not. He wanted this to end. He needed it to end. “Why do you come, day after day, taking bits and pieces instead of it all?”

The angel didn’t answer, featureless face turned towards them, six feathered wings spread so large and casting an eclipse’s shadow on the buildings below. They were on one of the highest they could get to. There was so little point in running away. When it spoke, its face split open, rows and rows of sharp teeth bared. “You can be forgiven. Your souls can still enter Heaven.”

“When?”

He wasn’t sure how much more he could take. Not his own suffering, that he was used to by now, but watching the others. Watching them be twisted and broken, beaten and mutilated, only to be fine again in the morning, to be ready for this again.

Seven souls, seven sins, seven days in a week. Once a week for however long, now, they’d answered for humanity’s sins, and the angel gave no indication of satisfaction.

“When your atonement is finished.”

“That’s not an answer, and you know it!”

“Must I ask one of the others, Shawn Spencer?”

He bit his tongue, trembling. He couldn’t ask them to endure further punishment, to take suffering before their time because of his own need to confront, to find out when this would have to end. “I will answer for the sin of humanity’s greed.”

He had seen the others all do the same, had done this himself before. Felt his body being dragged to the dimension of torment and pain, where his fingers would be cut off one by one, where his eyes would be gouged out, where his body would be pelted with gems and coins, burning hot like coals in the fires of hell, branding and burning his skin until he was unrecognizable.

He didn’t talk about it with the others, didn’t talk about the things he saw when he was there, every act of greed flashing through his mind. Countless slaughtered, countless lives ruined. Countless souls lost.

From time to time, he saw one of them. Those stuck with him and made him, in the pit of his burning heart, hate them for bringing further pain, for the searing in his body and mind, for the way his bones were broken and his flesh cut and peeled until he was a shuddering heap on the rooftop they’d assembled on, vomiting what little remained in his stomach, barely human, not even alive.

It was worse, this time, because he’d fought. Because he’d been greedy. Because he’d asked for freedom from this hell when it was the only thing any of them deserved.

“Don’t touch me,” he snarled without needing to, the slightest breeze making his nerves quiver with the most acute agony he’d ever felt. “Don’t fucking touch me. Don’t look at me.”

Pride. His father would pay for that. He always did.

“I will return tomorrow. Deliverance will come for you, in time. I promise you.”

He heard the flutter of wings and then nothing. No words, no movements. He wanted to beg to be killed, but he knew what that meant. He knew one of them would have to shoulder this burden alongside their own.

Lassiter’s Wrath. Gus’s Gluttony. Juliet’s Lust. McNab’s Envy. Vick’s Sloth. Henry’s Pride.

Shawn’s Greed.

He prayed to the god, to the devil, to whatever forces might be listening that something might kill them all and free them before it happened all over again.


	24. Spider's Web

He could see the threads connecting people long before he knew what they meant. He tried cutting them, running through them, but they never broke. He could fiddle with them and did often when he was bored, tugging this way and that, watching as they pulled tight, twanged, and every-so-often snapped.

There was no explanation, no handy guide telling him what they meant. He had to deduce it on his own, watching as the pale gossamer between his parents dissolved, as his mother formed a new connection, stronger, with a woman he hardly knew. It was the first time he saw a thread take on color, connecting their hands, the brightest blue, like on a cloudless day, the color of his mother’s eyes.

His own threads did not form. They were all too weak, shriveling before his eyes, or reaching their target only to fail to make a connection. Carlton felt broken; he spent more time in the principal’s office than any other honor-roll student. Heard the secretary murmur that it had to be due to his ‘home problems’, his father leaving, the woman who lived in their house and in his mother’s bed.

It was the first time Carlton cut someone else’s threads on purpose, with malicious intent. Walked straight through the strongest one she had and willed himself to be stronger, tougher, and the snap was audible, the thread lashing across his face in protest before it simply disappeared. It stung for days, raised a red line across his cheek, but he didn’t explain when his mother asked.

The result he never got to see; she quit her job not long after.

As he grew, he watched threads form and die, weave into stronger connections or break after years of tattering and fraying. Grew to understand them as much as he could.

His own remained absent, his relationships fleeting, his heart resolved to the loneliness that must lay ahead.

Until Victoria, until the first time someone reached out to him.

He nurtured it, his sole, fragile connection to another person. In time, it gained color, the gold of their wedding bands, and Carlton had never smiled so widely.

He had never been more heartbroken to witness it fade, to see their relationship destroying itself in front of his eyes. He signed the divorce papers and watched her walk out the door. Reached out in front of him and tore the thread from his heart, watching as it shriveled and died, a mercy when it had grown in the rocky, infertile soil of his soul.

He resigned himself, cutting them off when they tried to reach, watching as they no longer even started to grow.

“Are you heartless?” One of his (many) failed dates asked him.

“Maybe.”

Couldn’t help the raw envy when he saw the connections around him; Shawn and Gus had withstood the test of time and were so entwined Carlton wasn’t sure he could have broken them apart if he wanted to. The new ones that formed, the way the three of them…

Shawn and Gus were a playful light green. Gus and Juliet were the orange of a spectacular sunset. Shawn and Juliet were pink and bright.

He nurtured them, in the quiet moments of their days, strengthening bonds that didn’t truly need his help. To see them smile. To hear them laugh. To catch for even a moment a glimpse of what it was like to be truly in love, to be loved for the entirety of oneself.

“He’s waking up!”

“Give him some room, Shawn.” Gus was ushering his partner back, but Juliet was still crouching near him.

“How are you feeling?”

Grimaced at the pain in his head. “Like hell.” Tried to sit up only to have her gently lead him back down.

“You hit your head really hard; you’ve been out for a few minutes. We were so-”

“We shouldn’t have left you alone,” Shawn piped up, apologetic. “He pushed you off the landing; and the way you landed…”

“So don’t move,” Gus said firmly. “Paramedics are on their way. They need to make sure there hasn’t been a severe head or spinal injury.”

A glimpse of color caught his eyes; lilac, soft and sweet.

And there was one coming from his partner, as yellow as the sun.

“What are you looking at?” Shawn asked worriedly, pushing past Gus, reaching out to touch his face, and Carlton could see the blue the color of the early-morning sky, the color of his own eyes, how it looped around his wrist with the others and connected to him.

“You know,” he murmured, “I think I might be psychic.”

The three of them scolded him with sudden, fond outbursts, and he laughed despite the pain, despite the feeling in his chest, the anxiety and despair of having let them get so close, and his own stupidity that had blinded him until this moment.

Above the rest of the chaos and the uncertainty, he felt loved.


	25. Hide

They’ve been like this for hours. Shawn’s muscles are aching after the cramps had set in from running, then from subsequently ceasing to run, crawling into a tight, dark space with the one person in the world he can’t bear to be. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness; he can make out the sharp angles of Lassiter’s nose, catch a glimmer of his eyes. Neither of them are quiet people, neither of them are particularly patient, but those things don’t matter right now, because they have to be.

Outside of the closet are hulking beasts, barely human, mutated beyond recognition. Gus and Juliet had gotten out of the nest, but he and Lassie weren’t so lucky.

If he thinks about it, he remembers the flash of red running down Lassiter’s temple, the hit he’d taken that had been meant for Shawn, before Shawn had grabbed him and ran deeper into enemy territory and hid themselves away.

He wants to check if Lassie’s bleeding still. He wants to kiss him. He’s wanted to kiss him for months, but the world ending didn’t exactly offer up opportunity to pursue anything that might have been between them. These things had torn civilization apart in a matter of moons; Shawn thinks it’s November now, but it’s hard to tell, when the days blend together and calendars aren’t exactly easy to come by.

He closes his eyes and listens. Listens because it’s a distraction, because it’s something in the void of nothing, that will hopefully distract him from the urge to lunge across the cramped space and kiss the man who had been level-headedly talking about repopulating the human race when this was ‘over’ as if they aren’t just delaying the inevitable.

Shawn listens for an opening, listens to grunts and noises that seem almost conversational, to frantic chatter that’s practically meaningless. They’re still being searched for. Their only hope seems to be the limited understanding of doors — Gus had said something about semi-object permanence, that a closed door essentially meant that they didn’t know what lay beyond any longer.

It’s their only saving grace.

But eventually, they’ll have to go to the bathroom. They’ll have to drink. They’ll have to eat.

He’s going to die literally trapped in the closet, and that makes him want to crawl out of his skin because, honestly, he’s too pretty to die. He’s afraid of dying. He-

His breathing catches in his chest, and Shawn chokes back a sob. He’s already given up, which isn’t like him, but he’s terrified, and he’s not with anyone who understands, who feels the same spiraling loss of control. Lassie’s calm and collected and-

Did, did he imagine that, or did Lassie’s leg lean into his?

He cracks open his eyes to find Lassie watching him, the light from the crack in the door making Shawn painfully aware of how he’s looking directly at him. Concerned. Not passive, not uncaring, not hateful — they’ve never gotten along in the traditional sense. Lassie nods slowly and Shawn tries his best to push his own negativity down. It’s going to take both of them to get out of here alive.

They have to get out alive.

Shawn isn’t going to let either of them die before he knows how this thing between them plays out.


	26. Spirit Walker

Shawn sat in the dark, taking deep breaths, controlled and calm. His stomach rumbled for food — it had been torture turning down both Gus and his father’s invites for Christmas dinner, or, in fact, for any Christmas at all, but the rules, as he understood them, were clear. If this worked, then it would only be six more years, assuming Psych was still running, assuming he hadn’t chosen to give himself away. But if this worked, why should he?

Why should he own up to his lie at all if he could actually be psychic?

He had shown Gus the book months ago, gaging his response, watching keenly, and Gus had finally no other argument besides “Of course it’s not real, Shawn”.

He wondered if Gus knew, if he’d remembered, if he thought at all about disrupting him; all it would take would be the door opening before midnight and spilling light onto him to ruin this until the next opportunity.

He was going to guess it was a ‘no’, or perhaps Gus was just as curious a kitten as Shawn. Though less likely to take risks.

The clock he’d bought from an antique shop in the last few weeks began to chime. Shawn knew what it should be, had counted all the others leading up to this, but still, he held his breath. What if it meant another hour? Could he hold out until-?

The bell rang a twelfth time, and Shawn rose to his feet, took another deep breath, and stepped out into the moonlit night.

It seemed at first like a regular night’s stroll. He could hear someone playing Christmas music from their window, could hear laughter in the distance. There were no temptations, no other lonely people on the sidewalk. The church nearest him was only a few blocks away, in a former house, and Shawn had checked. It had a keyhole. The walk took him longer than he expected yet not long enough for him to be prepared. It felt like a dream when he knelt on the welcome mat, when he pressed his lips close and exhaled, entrusting his soul to this holy place while he-

He jerked awake, still in the closet he’d chosen for its darkness. Nothing said the meditative state had to be permanent, that he couldn’t nap a little, right? But if he emerged early…

To hell with it. New Year’s Eve wasn’t far away; if he had to try again, he’d try again.

When he opened the door, a blast of cool air rushed around him, snow fluttering against his skin, kissing and melting as they landed. Shawn shivered and reached back to grab a coat to find the closet gone, and himself, alone, in a place that wasn’t at all familiar.

In the distance, on a hill, he could see a chapel, with a spire pointing towards the cloudy sky, the glow of a full moon lighting it up, making it seem ethereal, otherworldly. That was the goal, then. Grimly set his jaw and began to walk, Roos crunching through the snow.

There was a soft giggle, and when Shawn looked up, he saw eyes the color of violets, and uncovered skin that looked like it had seen many, many nude sunbathings this last year. Shawn smiled and tried (emphasis on ‘tried’) to look her in the eyes rather than at her generous bosom or the soft curves that made him want to feel them against his own body. “You’re new.”

“Get many coming through?” he asked, forcing a grin.

“More than you think.” When she smiled, Shawn could see the jagged points of her teeth. “Not many make it back alive.”

“You’re supposed to test me, right?” The entries in the bestiary had been unhelpful, to say the least. It mentioned supernatural beings, and several with names he couldn’t actually pronounce without hurting himself, but the last note had been written in another handwriting. ‘Does NOT reflect current iterations. Be prepared for the worst.’ He’d looked for a more helpful source, but had been, sadly, spurned.

“I will. But, first. I want to know why you’re doing this.”

“The same reason as anyone.”

“To see if your crops will bear fruit?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Clever tongue. I almost wish you’d show me what it can do.”

“Only ‘almost’? I’m getting rusty.”

“Your heart is all torn up, isn’t it,” she said, stepping closer, and Shawn held himself still, craned his head up to face strange eyes of violet in a familiar face, skin pale, lips twisted into a scowl. “Surprised you can even feel love anymore, Spencer.”

_“At least I don’t go around pretending. You’re on girl number 23 since the divorce. When are you going to give up?”_

_“Believe it or not, I don’t want to be this way.”_

_“No, you’d rather keep trying to find Missus Right and fuck me on the side, right?”_

Lassie had crushed him against the wall, snarling against his mouth, restraint shattering and desperation driving him, anger that Shawn wouldn’t pull his punches, fear that Shawn would, like all the others, leave. Bark scraped at his back, heat consuming him in place of the cold, Lassie’s skin so- so-

Wrong. This was wrong. They hadn’t kissed since that fight; they hadn’t seen each other alone since. Neither of them could swallow their pride to apologize.

He pushed her back to find her as she had been, plump and perky and grinning sharply. “What’s your test?”

The succubus twirled a lock of white hair around her finger. “I need a heart to leave this place and return to the mortal realm.”

“And you want mine,” he guessed.

She gave a laugh that sounded like silver bells. “No. Yours is broken in ways that I can’t mend. I need a heart that’s pure and new. I need the heart of a child.” Gestured with her free hand down a path towards the chapel. “There’s a cemetery at the base of the hill. Graves marked with a simple stone usually belong to someone who wasn’t old enough to have a name. I’ll have one of those.”

“Fine.”

“Beware what lurks in the forest, Shawn. Not everything will help you succeed. Most things, in fact, just want to see you suffer.”

“Unlike you.”

“Those memories were yours,” she reminded him. “If you can’t deal with what’s already happened, how are you going to look into the future and be able to walk towards it?”

Shawn shrugged past her and began walking. Cemetery. Baby heart.

It wasn’t long before he heard a second pair of footsteps crunching alongside his own. Glanced down to see a younger version of himself, peering up with inquisitive eyes. “Why’re we here?”

“Because we never stop asking questions, kid.”

“You sound like dad.”

He scrunched up his face, and the younger version of himself laughed, running ahead through the snow, sliding once he’d built up enough speed. Grinned back at him. “Come on!”

“What are you supposed to be?”

“That’s for me to know!” He disappeared behind a tree, and when he poked his head out the other side, Shawn could recognize himself, older, about 16. “And for you to find out.”

“Shapeshifter?”

“Nope!”

“Here to test me?”

“Maybe I’m here to guide you.”

“Wouldn’t you be Gus, then?”

“Gus can’t always be there to keep you out of trouble, man.”

_“I’m 30, divorced, single, with a job that could fire me any day, and then this, all of this, on top of it.”_

_“You weren’t married that long; it doesn’t really count.”_

_“It mattered to me, Shawn!”_

_“Not enough to have me be your best man. That’s when you should’ve known it wasn’t built to last.”_

_“You realize there are people our age with kids, right? Careers? Lives?”_

_“We’re living life every day, dude. You think they are, with their mortgages and their daycare bills?”_

_“…Maybe that’s not what you want out of life, but I do.”_

_“Gus, you can’t be serious.”_

_“Why is it so ridiculous for you to believe that I want someone to love me? That I- I want kids, someday, and I don’t want to have to introduce them to you the way we were introduced to Jack? As someone who always runs off, who can’t be taken seriously?”_

_“That’s not fair.”_

_“None of this is.”_

_“Man, I’ll be around. For you, your kids, whatever lucky girl decides to settle down with you.”_

_“Like you were ‘around’ for the 10 years until you came home?”_

“These fun trips down memory lane are never going to get old,” Shawn said, forcing levity, his feet slowing against his will.

_“You went off to college! And you know what, that was great for you! Really, I’m so glad-”_

“Stop it.”

 _“-that you’re able to move on without me after we spent our entire lives together, but have I ever,_ ever _been angry at you for that?”_

_“You’re angry now.”_

_“Do you even want me to be here, or would your life have been better if I never came back into it? Is that what you’re really mad about here?”_

_“I never said-”_

_“You didn’t have to.”_

He never fought with Gus. They had tiffs; they had arguments. But fights that left him feeling like he was drowning, like he was bleeding or dying — that wasn’t them. It wasn’t even a big deal; they’d gotten back together on a case less than half a week later, and it’d been fine. “Gus always wanted to belong,” the voice belonging to little Shawn said, the child standing at his side, peering up at him again. “He wanted to fit in. But we never could.”

“You aren’t me.”

“But I know you as well as you know yourself. I know that you always felt different. Special. You tried fitting in, but it never worked. You were always lying. The life we live now is the one we always dreamed of. Being weird in front of everyone and them having to accept it. This entire thing is pre- predicted-”

“Predicated,” Shawn corrected before he could stop himself.

“Yeah, predicated, on the idea that once it’s done, there’s no going back. Even Gus will have to accept us if it’s irreversible. If we succeed, we’re set for life. If we don’t, we’ll die or lose our mind. Either way, I won’t have to live a life without him.”

Blinked, and found himself staring at a mirror image of himself. “And that’s what I’m really scared of, man. And sometimes, y’know, I think it’d be better to prove him right, to get on my bike and go and never come back. At least that way, I end it on my terms instead of waiting until the day he can’t take it anymore.”

Shawn blinked again, felt himself taking a faltering step back. “What are y-”

“What are you?” It asked at the same time, blinking at him, eyes wide. “The book didn’t say anything about this. It said challenges, it said I’d either succeed or fail. It didn’t mention mind games.”

Mind games. That’s all this was. “You aren’t me.”

“No, I’m Shawn Spencer. Who are you?”

Shawn shook his head. “You’re not.”

“That’s a funny name,” he said with a grin. “Is this, like, a knock-knock joke? You’re not, who?”

Shawn punched him so suddenly that it almost felt like it wasn’t him who did it. His fingers hurt; the last time he’d thrown a punch had been approximately never. But the other person reeled back, laughing and leaning against a tree for balance.

Its eyes were black when they looked up at him again, and they were gone in an instant, replaced with his own.

_Replaced. Different. Never fit in._

“You’re a changeling.”

“Now, I wonder if the other people in your life will figure it out so quickly.”

“They won’t get a chance.”

“And who’s gonna stop me?” Laughed manically. “You?”

Shawn tackled the changeling to the ground and pressed his fingers on the windpipe, until his face began to de-age, until he was staring at a child version of himself, screaming with the last of his air, thrashing beneath Shawn who slammed him into the ground again and again and again until all movements and struggles ceased.

With a poof of fairy dust that skittered across the snow, the changeling disappeared.

Cemetery. Baby heart. The chapel.

Broke free of the woods only to find a sizable stream blocking the cemetery. A great, white horse blinked at him from the other side, and Shawn had literally just yelled, “Fuck off, I’m not dealing with a unicorn!” when something unceremoniously pushed him in, and something else dragged him down.

A hand shot into the water, and Shawn let it pull him out, freezing and teeth chattering as he coughed water up onto the snow. “There is a bridge, you know,” the person said impassively.

Shawn looked, first, at the stone bridge that had definitely not been there before, and then at the person who he supposed had just saved him from drowning. They were… They were. It hurt to look at them, their body seeming to be composed of light. “And you are?”

“Where would be the fun in simply telling you?”

“I’m not currently in the market for ‘fun’.”

“No, instead you’ve chosen to make enemies of the fey. And then insult one of their kin. Very unwise.”

“The unicorn?”

“The kelpie. Nothing so pure as a unicorn could exist in this place.”

Kelpie. The book had mentioned kelpies. “Kelpies aren’t fey.”

“They’re all tricksters, and as you well know, they tend to stick to their own.”

Shawn waited for the memory, but none came. “Not gonna open old wounds like everyone else here?”

“What would be the point? Either you will learn from your past mistakes, or you will be doomed to repeat them. This is the curse of humanity and, indeed, of mortality. Prosperity and adversity, love and hate — these happen in cycles. If you cannot withstand one, you will not live to see the other.”

“That’s your whole spiel?”

“One of many. The most relevant to you.” They lifted a hand, movements slow and graceful. “You will find a myling some few yards from here in that direction. Take it to the grave you intend to open, and you will have succeeded in one of your challenges.”

“That sounds like a favor for the myling, not for you.” Shawn had read about mylings as well; they had been in the bestiary. Ghosts of unbaptized infants who wanted to be buried in sacred soil, who would drag their host down and either snap their spine or be at peace. Shawn had not intended on making friends with any mylings, if he could avoid it.

“An astute observation. But, you see, I am beyond helping.”

“Are you?”

“When angels fell from heaven, where do you think they landed? Most would say hell.”

“That’s not the right answer, is it.”

“Many fell to earth to plague humanity as demons. Some of us landed in the spaces between time and space. I have spent aeons in this world that does not exist, and seen humans walk, and live, and die. A pregnant woman climbed atop the kelpie, thinking, as you did, that it would take her to safety, to the eventual sight of her child in one year, hearty, hale, and happy. When she drowned, her soul did not linger, as I took her to the cemetery and buried her. But her child, so close to its birth and with nowhere else for a wayward soul to go, was trapped here.”

“Why wasn’t it buried with the mom?” Shawn asked and regretted it immediately.

“A changeling cut it out and took its place. Even knowing its true nature, I could not expel it. I could not bring myself to kill.”

“So there’s another changeling over there?”

“I imagine it has long passed. I have never seen it leave.”

Shawn rubbed at his arms, trying to feel warm, and decided his best bet was to get up and start moving. “Thanks for the, uh. Saving me, thing.”

“Of course. Now, please. Help the child find peace, and maybe you, yourself, may find some as well.”

Shawn walked in the indicated direction for ages until he found a small baby, too young to speak or do more than gesture, asking to be picked up. When Shawn held him, he felt as light as air. Settled him on his hip. “Let’s get you somewhere safe and warm and happy, okay?”

When he turned around, the fallen angel was gone, leaving only the large expanse between them and the cemetery. Counted the steps, one-by-one, as he began to walk. Felt, in increments, the baby grow heavier, and when his steps began to falter, it began to wail louder than anything Shawn had heard before. The only thing that soothed it was movement towards the destination, so he forced his feet to go, even as his knees and hips popped, as an uncomfortable weight settled on his spine like he’d spent the last half of his life sleeping in the wrong position. “Heavy, aren’t you?”

Barely crossed the threshold before his feet gave out, and the myling skidded across the hallowed ground into an open grave. Shawn shot to his feet and ran, only to find an infant’s skeleton curled up in the hole. “That’s fine,” he muttered to himself, pushing the pile of dirt next to the grave into it, burying the skeleton before anything else creepy or weird could happen. “That’s not gonna give me nightmares or anything, no sir.”

Looked up as he dusted his hands off on his wet jeans to find a raven staring at him from the gravestone. It cocked its head. “Know any baby corpses that still have hearts?” Shawn deadpanned.

“We have quite a few, actually; mostly towards the S section.”

Shawn screamed and jumped back, much to the bird’s amusement. Its laughter echoed inside Shawn’s head, unbearably harsh. “So what are you then?”

“Just a raven.”

“Who can speak.”

“We all can; it’s merely a question of whether we choose to.”

“So, why did you choose to?”

“Come follow me, and let’s kill two birds with one stone, shall we?”

“Didn’t think a bird would be fond of that saying.”

The raven circled around him. “Lesser birds, perhaps, but killing ravens with stones is hardly common practice these days, whereas sparrows and starlings, well. The numbers aren’t quite so kind to them.”

They stopped at a series of unmarked graves. “Triplets,” the raven parroted off. “None have been disturbed; you shall be the first.”

“So, what is this doing for you?”

“I’m helping you, so that you, in turn, may help me. Was I unclear on that?”

“And what do you want?”

“Do begin digging, and I’ll explain.” The raven perched nearby, and Shawn reluctantly got to his knees and began digging his fingers into the surprisingly-soft earth. “You see, we ravens serve several important functions among the world unseen. We gather information. We serve as omens to protect the unaware. We are the vessels of gods and the dead, wise and terrible.”

“At least you’re upfront about it.”

“Precisely. Unlike you.”

Shawn’s hands froze. He pulled them back to himself, looking down at the raven as it alighted on the opposite side of the grave. “We are one and the same, you and I. Intelligent tricksters, wise in ways that we hide for our own sakes. I refuse to speak to humans, and you.”

_“I’m having a- a vision!”_

“Exactly that. We bear ill news but for the greater good. We are untrusted, and, worse, we are uncertain if we should trust ourselves.”

_“Shawn, are you lying? About yourself, about all of this?”_

_“Why would you ask me that?”_

_“I… it doesn’t matter.”_

_“Jules!”_

_“Can’t you sense it?”_

“She fears being let down again, as much as you fear being the cause of not only her pain but everyone else’s. Your motivations and feelings towards each situation vary, deeply. But all are important to you.”

_The rough touch of Lassie’s hands gentling as they curve against his jaw, something soft and warm in a moment that had previously held nothing._

_Gus shaking in his arms and slowly soothing to a calm, laughing, “You can let go of me now. I’m fine. We’re cool.”_

_Biting the truth back because at this point, telling the truth would mean losing her friendship forever._

_Being willing to change the entire way the world works, to become something unreal just to make reality…_

Shawn felt tears sting at his eyes. Went back to digging. “So, what? You want to feel my pain, or ‘make me suffer’ or something?”

“I want you to be kinder.” Shawn’s pace stuttered and then he was back, digging as fast as he could stand. “You aren’t overly selfish. You aren’t antisocial. You crave approval and love, but you won’t let yourself seek it out of the fear that you will harm others, or that they will harm you. You push them away to avoid confronting reality.”

“I’m going pretty damn far to avoid confronting reality,” Shawn pointed out bitterly.

“You’re changing your reality to something you feel is more workable, which is understandable if a bit questionable. You’re afraid. And that’s all right.”

“So that’s my challenge?” Shawn asked, glaring up at the bird. “Be ‘kinder’?”

“Yes. Be kinder to yourself, believe in yourself. You are capable of everything you want to be, of being the person you want to be. The only thing standing in your way is you.”

“And what if I can’t?”

“Then we’ll see you here in another year. You’ll go through this again and again until you achieve your desires. And, one day, if not this year, then someday — you will be capable of fulfilling this promise to me.”

Shawn’s hands shook as he uncovered the face of an infant. The raven held a wing over the grave. “Promise me, Shawn Spencer. Promise me you will do this.”

Tears gathered at his chin, and fell onto the body below. “I promise.”

The raven hopped down the grave and ran its beak over the child’s chest, a flash of light leaving a beating heart in its beak. “Go to the chapel. I will deliver this to the succubus.” It wheeled off without hesitation towards the forest, and Shawn stood, shivering from the cold, from the ice in his clothes, and the snow that kept gathering on his skin and hair. Dragged his feet reluctantly towards the chapel and began climbing the hill.

Felt time rush forward around him, eyes moving, unseeing, over the path in front of him as it showed him glimpses of what may be.

_A burst of flowers arrived at Lassie’s desk in early spring from a secret admirer. He threw them in the trash and yelled at them all, but Shawn saw him pluck a few petals to keep in his pocket, to remind him that someone out there had thought, even jokingly, of him._

_Gus met a girl at a New Year’s party. She kissed him after midnight, and he broke up with her months later when she told Gus that Shawn wasn’t the kind of person she would want around her kids._

_Jules was shot; if not for the bulletproof vest, it would have been lethal. There was too much elation after a near-death experience, and she kissed him, only to apologize and run away. Shawn didn’t chase after her._

_Summer saw more secret admirer gifts that Lassie squirreled away when he thought no one was looking. Shawn finally got up the nerve to sign one. There was a big, blowout argument. The gifts stopped._

_Gus, Shawn, and Jules went to a midnight premier of a summer action flick together. They dressed up, he did not. He was, officially, the least cool among the three of them._

_Shawn explained to Juliet that the truth was hard. That he couldn’t tell her what was real and what wasn’t because he was selfish, because the only thing he wanted to change was the distrust she had for him. It only made it worse._

_Shawn went away for a month in the autumn, driving north. Saw a raven on the road at a hotel and threw a rock at it, only to miss completely and the raven caw’d in laughter at him._

_When he arrived home, there was a gift from a not-so secret admirer in the mail._

_Gus and Juliet held hands at a crime scene on accident. Only Shawn seemed to notice._

_Juliet forgave him in time, though she still didn’t understand why he wouldn’t tell her the truth now that he’d basically done it._

_He and Lassie kissed at the Christmas party early enough that neither of them could claim to be drunk, though they both claimed it was the first time. Literally everybody saw, and neither of them cared._

_Gus invited Juliet over to Christmas dinner because Shawn was going to be busy._

_Shawn couldn’t tell her the truth, because he wasn’t sure what the truth was going to be when all was said and done. Maybe he would do all of them including a seventh year walk. Maybe he would stop before then. Kindness to himself didn’t come easy. He needed a reminder, now, and that was all that mattered. The rest could come when it did._

The chapel door opened beneath his hand, and Shawn spilled into his own hallway, eyes open and an entire year ahead of him. His phone said 12:01, and Shawn hit the speed dial as quickly as his shaking hands could manage. “Gus! Year walking works!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based on the concept of [year walking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85rsg%C3%A5ng)!


	27. Bones

They showed him the bones at the bottom of the hole, peeking out of the mud and muck, slipping the blindfold off his eyes so he could see exactly what lay ahead for him. “Guys-” Shawn began, wanting to try and talk his way out of this.

The hand on the nape of his neck tightened, almost familiar except in every way it wasn’t and couldn’t be. Shawn’s stomach turned over. “Shut up,” the man growled and then pushed him forward, releasing, and Shawn fell on top of the skeleton. He landed wrong and felt something give in a way it wasn’t meant to, combined with the harsh landing on the previous occupants ribs, feeling them snap under his weight. Shawn cried out, eyes flying open to see them spreading the tarp over the hole, heard them drive spikes into the ground, and saw the light fade as they covered it in dirt and leaves.

The ransom would be posted in a matter of hours; more of a taunt than a promise as Shawn was sure they never intended for him to see the light of day again even if the city would cough up money to try and save him. These people hadn’t followed through on their end of a bargain in years, picking on those too afraid to go to the police for help, the most vulnerable, and opening up a string of cold cases had meant opening old wounds for the detectives who had failed before, but Shawn had been sure.

He had been so sure that he hadn’t bothered telling anyone where he was going to spy on them. He would save it up for the big reveal. He’d been arrogant, and now he was trapped at the bottom of a hole with a possibly — probably — broken leg and a skeleton of a previous victim. He’d contaminated the crime scene, and the thought made him give a nervous laugh.

They’d driven far — there was no telling where exactly he was, how likely he was to be heard if he screamed for help. Likely, it’d get him buried alive, and that wouldn’t do him any good. He closed his eyes and tried to think, scooting away from his new friend and looking at the broken bones. He didn’t have time for this — he had to start making a plan.

But before that, he had to know exactly what he was up against. If there was a guard above. If there was frequent movements; how often someone came to check on him.

He picked up a broken rib and slowly used it to wheedle a rock out of the wall. Began sharpening slowly, quietly, not wanting to draw attention to himself. He had a feeling he wouldn’t get out of this without a fight even if he could escape the hole.

\-----

Time crawled. He had never been good at distracting himself, at keeping his mind busy even when it meant his life was on the line. He listened and sharpened, trying not to think about how he was already thirsty, already hungry, in pain and wanting it to stop.

As far as he could tell, there was no posted guard. They took for granted that he’d stay where he was supposed to, that attempting to escape would prove to be futile.

Shawn grimaced. He wasn’t entirely sure they were wrong.

\-----

It was cramped. Shawn had never been claustrophobic, but he could feel it creeping in now, the feeling that the tight space he’d been stuck in was somehow squeezing tighter. He tried to sleep, but between the pain and panic, he couldn’t manage. Took another rib and drove it into the earth, trying to pull himself up only for it to slide out and thud onto the ground. “Okay,” he murmured. “Fine.” Stuck the other rib and his sharpening stone into his pockets and dug into the ground with his hands, pulling as hard as he could until some came free.

He could dig his way up. He was going to have to.

\-----

It began to rain in the middle of the night, and Shawn crawled beneath the center of the tarp, opening his mouth to catch dirty raindrops as they slid down from the outside, collected, and fell. His stomach began to growl aggressively, demanding food, and Shawn felt the beginnings of nausea set in. Sat atop the small pile of dirt he’d already extracted and took out the rib and the rock. Began to sharpen as he drank what nature gave him. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was all he had.

\-----

Raking down the dirt with his bare hands left him with sore fingers. But by midday, he could see a little bit of sunlight peeking over the side of the tarp.

He’d lucked out and seemed to be digging between two of the grounding spikes, so he wouldn’t have to start over and risk that they’d see him trying to tunnel his way out.

The pelvic bone proved to be a better shovel than his own hands. He’d had to dig back down to the skeleton to get it.

He’d apologized and sent one of his few rare prayers skyward.

He was running out of time.

\-----

He dug until his arms ached and then sharpened until he could bear to pick up his makeshift shovel again. He went for 24 hours until he slide abruptly back to the bottom and landed on the wrong leg. Bit his lip to keep from screaming and slowly crawled his way back up. Shawn’s thoughts were surprisingly clear, empty, surely a symptom of his hunger and dehydration — he wouldn’t last much longer, and his captives hadn’t said a single word to him, much less sent food and water to keep him alive.

An earthquake trembled through the earth. Shawn dug the pelvic bone into the ground and held on for dear life until it passed. No one came out to see if he was still alive.

It suddenly occurred to him that they might have put him in the hole and left entirely. Didn’t risk calling out to see, and instead kept digging. The higher he got, the less he had to move, and suddenly his head was above ground, and he realized he was truly in the middle of nowhere, alone. Didn’t recognize the forest that surrounded him, didn’t know how long he’d been struggling to get free.

Felt like he might die even after he’d gotten free. “Help,” he spoke, voice straining from lack of use. It wouldn’t reach anyone’s ears even if they were standing within a few feet of him. “Please.”

There was no answer. Shawn released the pelvic bone, letting it slide down the gentle slope back into the hole. The rib he kept close at hand as he crawled towards the nearest tree, scooting around the edge so he could be hidden from view of the pit. Felt like there were eyes on him but couldn’t find a source for his anxiety besides every reason he had to be anxious in the first place.

\-----

Awoke with a start as someone touched him, bringing the rib up defensively before the swimming in his eyes stopped. Saw blood on it and felt satisfied, thrusting up with his hand again only to have his wrist pinned down as the face hovering over him finally finished registering. “Sweet justice, Spencer.”

“Lassie,” he breathed softly, the rib falling from his hand. “Y-you found?”

“Idiots forgot to turn off your GPS. We booked them for theft of your phone, and the Chief looked the other way while we found out where they’d taken you.”

“My hero,” he said with a smile.

“Thank Guster, not me. They wouldn’t say a thing to me, but after a few hours with Gus…”

Shawn blinked slowly. “I’m not dead, am I?”

“No, Shawn, you’re not dead.”

“Huh. That’s a surprise.”

“We need to get you to the hospital. And me, apparently. Where did you even…?”

“There’s a body at the bottom of the hole,” he said, gesturing vaguely towards the other side of the tree. “At least one. Probably more. I doubt they were smart enough to dig a different hole somewhere else.”

Lassie helped him to his feet, and Shawn hissed with pain. “I know.”

“Sorry I contaminated a crime scene.”

“You can contaminate as many as you want as long as you stay with us,” he mumbled under his breath, probably hoping that Shawn hadn’t heard, or that he’d be too out of it to remember.

He wasn’t.


	28. Rattling Chains

The sound of the chains would haunt him for a lifetime, if not longer. He’d never forget it, the way they’d pulled taut with a clang the moment light spilled into the dark, the moment he thought escape or attack would be possible. “You’re not ready to see him,” one of the others had told him, and he’d insisted on it anyway. The last thing Carlton needed at the beginning of the end was to be poked and prodded and questioned by people he didn’t know.

Months. Shawn could never forgive himself for that, for the months it took to find out who took him, much less where he was being held. Shawn had tried everything, and it hadn’t been enough. “It’s okay, Lassie. It’s okay. I’m here-”

Carlton’s pale eyes took on an unearthly ice-blue glow, fangs and claws lengthening as he strained to attack.

“I’m here now,” he said like it meant the nightmare could be over. “Come on, you remember me, right? Lassie-”

Another snarl, another yank of the chain that connected to the heavy silver collar around his throat, the skin blistering and healing around it in a constant, sickening dance. Shawn realized two things at the same time: Carlton Lassiter did not know who he was, and his fond nickname had been tainted by the bastards who had turned him into this.

“Carlton,” he tested the unfamiliar name instead.

Lassiter drew back, still baring his teeth, still an animal full of distrust and anger. His hair unfurled around his face and shoulders, beard unkempt. He barely looked like the man Shawn loved and more like a stranger that he had no desire to meet. “Carlton,” he said, again, trying to cut back on the platitudes, the endearments, all signs of familiarity. “I’m Shawn Spencer. We- we used to work together, before this. Before they kidnapped you and turned you into a werewolf and God knows what else.”

“Do you remember? You were Head Detective. On the road to becoming Chief of Police. You were gonna be the youngest one Santa Barbara had ever seen.” Tried to reach for some of that pride, but there was nothing. It broke Shawn’s heart. “Your partner — Det. Juliet O’Hara. She took over for you while you were… away. You- you should’ve seen her, La- Carlton. You would’ve been so proud.”

Past tense. Talking in the past tense, like the man wasn’t sitting right in front of him. Like he wouldn’t get to see it.

“Can I take the collar off? The men who did this to you — they won’t be back. They won’t ever hurt you again, I promise.”

Carlton eyed him suspiciously, and ended up moving away, back into the dark, choosing the pain, the fear, over Shawn himself.

Shawn didn’t cry until he made it out into the moonlit night. After searching for so long, after fighting and scraping by, to have this thrown in his face was beyond agonizing. He heard a pained howl from the depths as they dosed him with something to knock him out.

\-----

When the full moon hit, Shawn stayed in the room they kept him in. No more chains — he had promised that. But the cell had been a necessity. Shawn was almost worried that it wouldn’t be enough to hold Carlton back, but he had talked soothingly. He had talked about nothing important, nothing to make him think, just trying to familiarize him with his voice again.

When he collapsed from exhaustion, it was in the middle of the floor. He hadn’t used the bed they’d set up for him once. Shawn dared to unlock the cage and grab the blanket, tucking it around his shoulders and quickly getting back on the right side of the bars.

A clawed hand pulled the blanket tighter around him, and Carlton didn’t stir until morning.

\-----

By the end of the next week, Shawn could safely sit near the bars of the cage. He could get nods and shakes of the head, but verbal communication was going to take some time to get back. Shawn offered to tie his hair back, and Carlton reluctantly nodded, creeping closer. He nudged his head into Shawn’s hands as they worked, and Shawn obliged, touching him so softly as if he might suddenly shatter again.

“Sleep,” was the first word he managed, exhaustion and the feeling of futility dragging Shawn to the depths of his emotional stability. “Sleep here.”

He was sitting at the place next to the bars, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders — he always slept with it now — and how was Shawn supposed to say no?

They leaned their heads together, and Shawn could feel his breath. Felt tears in his eyes again at how close they could be, and how far away they were from being where they had been. “I missed you,” he confessed in the quiet.

A soft snore was the only response he got.


	29. Nighttime Feast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An unrelated fantasy AU to 'Masquerade Murder'.

There’s a shadow at his window, silhouetted against the stars, waiting and watching as he stirs in his bed. “Is it that time?”

“I’m actually late.”

“Are you?”

“An hour or so.” Though he can’t see his face, he can imagine the amused tilt of his smile, can practically feel it pressed against his skin. “Did I keep you up?”

“I imagine this is worse for my night’s sleep than you being ‘late’.” He’s teasing, withholding permission — Shawn has always adored pushing boundaries, seeing what exactly he can get away with, and this is no different.

“I could leave,” the phantom says, though makes no move to go anywhere.

“I could call the guards.”

That gets him a small huff of a laugh. They both know that by the time they’d gotten to the prince’s chambers, his visitor would be long gone. It’s an idle threat, but it’s one Shawn has repeated, trying to extract a name to go with the face that haunts his daydreams and keeps him up at night.

Technically, what Shawn’s doing is illegal. He’s harboring a vampire — worse, he’s feeding him. Inviting a monster into one’s home is one thing, but inviting one into the castle… If Shawn were anyone else, his head would be on the chopping block for it.

Shawn’s not entirely sure that Henry wouldn’t go through the motions of setting up an execution just to teach him a lesson, but he does know that his father would never follow through with it, however serious he may be about the threat plaguing his kingdom.

“You haven’t fed off anyone else?”

That is another question he asks often, and this time he can see the shape of his lips, golden and warm as he responds, “I haven’t, no.”

Shawn’s not magically inclined; this isn’t a spell he chose or placed on himself. It’s something his mother gave him, so that he could know friend from foe, that he could see lies as plain as day so that he could avoid the knife in the dark.

Silver words have only been spoken once by this man who visits him more regularly than any other prospective suitor. Shawn had been selfish, warm and hazy in the aftermath of slow, sensual lovemaking. And he had asked, murmured into pale skin, “Do you love me?”

“No.” The word had been like ice, had frozen Shawn to the bone. “If you knew me, you would be disgusted that you asked.”

“Is your real identity that abhorrent?”

“Is this one not?”

Shawn had considered and mulled it over without much of a conclusion. A midnight visitor to the heir’s bedchambers, who refused to give his name, his occupation, anything of himself to the person of whom he knew everything — was that person disgusting? Unlovable?

If so, Shawn had thought that he must be, too, for never doing a thing to defend himself.

In the moment, he gestures, “Come in.”

Starlight spills in from the window as the phantom sweeps in, striding towards his bed with a comfort and familiarity that makes Shawn’s heart pang.

There is no need to light a candle or awaken the magic torches that could brighten the room. He knows the body that presses against his own, knows the lips that flutter over his pulse, that irreverently tease, “Your Highness — you’ll wake the dead with all that noise.”

He knows the steps of their verbal sparring so well that he can focus on feeling, on reminding himself of the man he loves, though he may never see him by the light of day. The shape of his ears, the crookedness of his nose, the lean body, so powerful and yet with ribs and collar bones jutting out.

He had been emaciated when he had been turned. Willingly, or not.

Shawn has never known hunger, not until this, not until he feels like he’s starving for the feel of the man’s skin against his own, the low growl of his voice using all of the titles people call him by day, the feel of his fangs sinking in his neck, stinging at first and then feeling so good.

“Shawn,” he slips once, near their respective peaks, and follows it with another bite, not intending to harm, but claiming him.

Shawn feels that it is his curse that he will never be able to do the same.


	30. Broken Seal

“Mr. Spencer!”

His head snapped up, aware that Jack’s had done the same, both of them looking over the map that had been given to them. This was undoubtedly the site, so they’d dug. Dug until the pit was so deep and wide that Shawn had almost felt like giving up. The security officer bounced on the balls of her feet. “The diggers found something!”

“Something?” Jack asked, both of their gazes meeting, exchanging a knowing look. They’d paid for labor, not for brains. So far the total of ‘somethings’ that their diggers had found had been four weird rocks, two ‘ancient relics’ (aka something that had been thrown away and then buried no less than 10 years ago), and finally, the straw that had broken the camel’s back, a piece of trash that someone from their camp had thrown away then claimed to unearth the next day.

The diggers had been instructed not to tell them about the ‘somethings’ they found until it was something important.

“You go check it out, Shawn.”

Shawn raised his eyebrows, but didn’t question his uncle. Pushed himself up from the table they were sat at, and gave a shining grin to the security officer. “C’mon, Jules. Let’s go down in the pit.”

There was, indeed, something. Shawn was certain of that from the moment he saw the dome, glimmering in the afternoon sun, reflecting the sunlight in crazy directions, like it was made of water. He jogged down into the pit, pace picking up, unable to stop once the thrill had started, promising a result after months of waiting, months of searching and pinpointing and work.

“What the hell is it?” One of the diggers asked, rubbing the sweat off his brow and shielding his eyes from the blinding light.

The thing was that Shawn had no idea. Gus was back in civilization, researching all possibilities, but he had yet to turn up anything conclusive. The treasure best left unburied had supposedly been unearthed a long time ago and then reburied by the finders. No one had sought to find it again.

It wasn’t gold or a treasure chest, but Shawn had a feeling it was infinitely more valuable. Said with certainty, “This is what we’re looking for.”

“It’s not gonna blow up or anything, is it?” Another digger asked, voice gruff.

“Nope,” Shawn said easily, thinking that statistically, he was most likely telling the truth. “Be careful, get it the rest of the way out, then we can all finally go home, yeah?”

The group seemed to like that idea, murmuring amongst themselves, and Shawn took his leave, reluctantly dragging his eyes away from the prize.

“They found it,” he informed Jack, practically collapsing back in his previous seat. “It’s big — might take them a while to unearth all the way.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Shawn answered truthfully. Jack looked displeased, but Shawn had expected that. Not being able to put an immediate price tag on all the work they’d done up until this point would undoubtedly piss him off. “You should go take a look. It’s… something else. Out of this world.”

“Not to be unfair, kiddo, but you’ve said the same thing about certain people before.”

“I’ve never been wrong,” Shawn pointed out just to watch his uncle grimace. “Trust me, Jack — this is worth the wait.”

“You better be right.”

There was that undercurrent, an unspoken threat, a demand for something worth his time or there would be consequences. In that way, he was so like Henry that it made Shawn feel claustrophobic even in the middle of nowhere, with the world stretching on towards the horizon.

As more of the sphere was unearthed, the glow became almost unbearable. Shawn ran to the nearest town and bought sunglasses for the workers, for himself, unable to keep himself away now that the moment they’d waited for was at hand. They dug into the night, the sphere glowing like a star. Even Jack gave a low whistle of approval at the sight of it.

Once they’d reached the halfway point, the largest portion of the sphere unearthed, the ground rumbled around them, and with effort, it pulled itself out of the ground, floating above the hole it had made, glowing ever brighter. The diggers, their jobs done, wisely fled to safety, but Shawn. Shawn took off his sunglasses and approached the light, holding out his hand and resting it against the surface of the sphere, feeling the delicate texture beneath his hand, and watching as the contents inside seemed to swirl closer, until his hand was at the center of a galaxy bathed in golden light.

“Why would anyone put you back?” he murmured, fingers stroking softly, trying to comfort the inanimate object. “You’re beautiful.”

“Kid-” Jack’s voice sounded like it came from a lifetime away, and Shawn was immersed in something else, somewhere else entirely.

_Beautiful?_

“Yeah, gorgeous,” he murmured, unable and unwilling to stop himself.

_What is beautiful?_

Shawn’s mind brought up a thousand images that flashed lightning-quick on the space around him. Fiery sunsets and starlit nights, the perfect order from his favorite restaurant moments before he dug in, people caught in the quiet moments of their lives, lost in thought, lost in themselves. Flowers and snow, laughter and comfortable silences, all the things in the world that could be beautiful if experienced with the right people.

_Oh. I am not-_

“You are,” he promised. Money and fame were completely forgotten, the possibilities and excitements of the future lost to the here and now and this, this thing he couldn’t begin to comprehend but wanted to, wanted to know everything he could. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

He felt something crack, felt something clutch tight at his chest, and when he stumbled back, it was out of the glow, air heaving into his lungs as he coughed up liquid that glimmered, and the bright thing they had unearthed shattered, spilling around the dig site. Shawn coughed until his ribs hurt, alone until Juliet ran out with a canteen and thumped his back until he could finally stop coughing. “You went inside it somehow; Mr. Spencer tried to get you to stop but-”

“Kid, what the hell was that?” Jack interrupted, glaring over Shawn at the puddle of glowing liquid that had pooled in the hole that the sphere had come from. “What happened?”

Shawn gave another weak cough. “I don’t know.”

“You broke it.”

“It was supposed to be broken,” Shawn said, feeling suddenly certain, his hands shaking. “There was something in there.”

“Really,” Jack said in a way that didn’t sound like a question at all.

Before Shawn could answer, he could hear bubbling, and turned in time to see a head break free of the surface of the pool, hands groping at the side of the hole as the man coughed and sputtered. Shawn scrambled gracelessly to his feet, and ran to help, his hands leaving dust prints on skin that seemed to glow. The man finally caught his breath and looked into Shawn’s eyes, his own the color of a cloudless morning.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Shawn murmured, brushing a hand back through his sopping hair, suddenly aware that he, himself, was soaked to the bone.

“You,” the man spoke, his voice guttural and raw and beautiful. Behind him, something twitched, and when Shawn looked, he saw folded two massive wings that flared out, shielding them both from prying eyes, giving them a moment to catch their breaths together. “You… freed me?”

“Was I not supposed to?”

“No,” he said, blinking a few times before amending. “At least I don’t think so.”

“What are you?” he asked, unable to look away from his face and feeling his own warm as the man crawled closer, bare skin sticking to Shawn’s clothes, his dark hair matted against his head.

“I’m told that I’m beautiful,” he said with a slight smile.

Before Shawn could interrogate him further, there was a hand on the back of his shirt, hauling him back and away, bringing him up to face his uncle. “What is it?” Jack demanded impatiently.

“Isn’t it obvious?” The man slowly teetered to his feet, using his wings to regain balance. He lifted his head, proud, imperious, glowing like a star. “I’m an angel.”


	31. Kiss of Death

There are hands cupping his face, warm and gentle, like if he presses too hard, Carlton’s skin will tear, his bones shatter like glass, his weak grip on life will finally have to let go. “Stay with me,” Shawn murmurs, pleading and ordering, and Carlton can think of nothing that he’d love more.

He’d love to wade out in his bare feet, feel the sand between his toes and Shawn grabbing onto his arm as the waves crash around their legs. He’d love to own a house, a fixer-upper with as many useless inventions making life 20% more difficult for the sake of appeasing Shawn. He’d love to get married again, to stand across the aisle with him and hold his hands and kiss him in front of God and everybody else.

He’d love to grow old and hear Shawn complain about wrinkles and gray hairs and be in his 70s with his husband still throwing candy at him from across the room when he makes an honestly terrible joke.

He’d love to experience everything, to have everything—

“Stay with me.” Shawn presses his lips against him, mouthing the words, chanting them like they can change the course of fate, like they can save him when the world’s starting to go dark.

“I don’t know what I’ll do without you.” Shawn’s forehead is against his own, nose nudging slightly against Carlton’s, fingers still so gentle, stroking over his skin, trying, trying so hard. “Please, don’t leave me.”

“We could get a dog,” he muses aloud. “Always digging up the garden.”

“Yes,” Shawn breathes, kissing him again, desperate. “A big dog. And a garden; we’ll plant so many flowers. Our hayfever will be awful but the entire neighborhood'll be so jealous.”

“Chase the squirrels out of the yard, too.”

Shawn laughs desperately, but it dies as quickly as it began, and his eyes are the only thing Carlton can see. “I love you. You know that, right?”

“I do.” He shudders, feeling the pain drift away, feeling his own hands start to loosen. “I’m glad I got to spend the rest of my life with you.” The world around him is spinning, time ticking down to the grand finale. “I love you, too. Love all of you.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I—”

“Shawn.”

“Lassie?”

He manages a weak smile as the darkness moves in, and a light appears in the far reaches of his vision. “I’ll be waiting.”


End file.
